Untold part of the story
by Eliza Tenorio
Summary: This the normal story of the anime but this one has two new characters called Meg and Russell which are orphans.Hope you enjoy it!
1. Chapter 1

The sun was especially hot today, I had been walking for three days with my brother to this town in the middle of nowhere called "Liore". I seriously hope we find it soon because our water supply is running low.

-" Ugh! how much longer 'till we get there?" I complained.

-" Meg do you see that black dot that is getting bigger and bigger?" Russell asked as he pointed toward the horizon.

-"Yeah I saw it before but i thought it was one those tricks that the desert pulls on you when your going to get a heat stroke or something" I responded.

-"Well that dot over there is Liore." he assured me by patting me on the back.

-"Remind me again why we're going to the town that is IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE." I exclaimed while sticking my tongue out.

-" Hahaha because the Elric brothers are going there and we need to ask them a favor." Russell said with a smile then started sprinting toward the black dot in the distance called Liore.

* * *

I couldn't help but gasp at the sight of the place. The town was breath taking, you would think that a town in the middle of the desert would be abandoned with the buildings falling apart. But it was the complete opposite! The place was filled with life everywhere, children running,hundreds of open shops, people socializing and a huge water fountain.

-" Look brother, that water fountain is full of grape juice!' I exclaimed as I ran and grabbed a cup and started to pour in some 'grape juice'.

-"Um.. Meg I don't think tha-

-"Haha I wouldn't drink that if I were you!" I heard a guy say behind me. I dropped the cup and quickly turned around surprised to see a blonde guy as tall as me, wearing a red coat. Standin next to him was a huge metal armored man...? Why would anyone wear an armor in this heat?

-"My! don't we have the best of luck, Meg these are the Elric brothers." Russell exclaimed proudly as he walked towards them.

-"How do you know us? haha are we THAT famous already?" the small blonde one asked.

-" Oh! Where are my manners?! My name is Russell and this is my little sister Megan." Russell said pointing towards me.

-"But you can call me 'Meg'. " I corrected.

-" Edward, at your service" the blonde said as he bowed with a warm smile.

-"And I am Alphonse! please to meet you." The metal man said with a childish voice... that caught me off guard because I thought he was a grown man since he was soo tall.

-" So why are you guys here? Tourism?" Edward inquired.

-"We came here in search for you." My brother responded. 'Great sound like a creeper' I thought.

-" We want to help with the search of the philosopher's stone." He continued.

-"And why would you want to that? What happens when we find it? How do we know you won't try to take it for yourselves!" Edward said defensively

-" Brother!" Alphonse exclaimed but Edward raised his hand to hush him.

-" Guess that you'll have to wait and see, but to assure that we won't steal it. Here." He walked towards me and took the necklace I was wearing then he gave it to Edward. I was about to complain but Russell's glare hushed me.

-" And why do I want a old, ugly necklace?" Edward said bluntly inspecting the necklace.

-"Because according to the doctor that cured me three years ago, he gave this necklace and told me that the day I open the necklace is the day I'll have some clues about the making a philosopher's stone" I explained with a bit of anger on my tone because he wasn't being careful with the necklace. Edward and Alphonse looked at each other, nodded, then looked back at us.

-"Welcome aboard!" Edward exclaimed as he hugged us both and started walking towards the entrance of the town called Liore.


	2. Chapter 2

When we left Edward told us that they were going back to central report their findings to this guy called Roy Mustang I think? ... Well I'll see when we get to central. The next few days we did ALOT of traveling, Ed said it was neccesary to the investigation but I think say he's just stalling. Alphonse is really nice and I can relate to him because we're both the smaller siblings. I'm older than him and smaller than Edward by 3 months. Russell is the oldest because he's 16, haha but not the tallest! Anyways in our travels we went to this town that is full of water, called Aquroya. And we met this nurse/teacher/nun/thief. I never really understood her, I mean she said she stole for the good of the place she was working for at the moment, but then the places would go out of business. But Alphonse fell in love with her. You could tell easily. The next town we visited, we learned alot more about the philosopher's stone. This thing called red water can be made into a kind of replica of the the thing is, the replica is toxic and the villagers are contracting this flu-like sicknes because of it. Another thing we learned is that a few years ago this doctor came to cure the disease with a flash ... says the witness. Edward suspects it's alchemy or the philosopher stone's doing. Russell and me think that this doctor sounds a bit familiar but we kept it to our selves since we aren't sure that this is the same doctor that cure my blindness three years ago.

-"We will be arriving at central in ten minutes." The conductor informed the pasengers through the microphone, inturrupting my thoughts.

-"Ugh! ten minutes 'till we arrive to Roy's nagging and mocking."Edward sighed.

-"Brother, it's raining. When we arrive we need to hurry to head-quarters."Al warned. 'Oh yeah i forgot he was made of metal'. I thought.

-"Yeah, we forgot to pack an umbrella. Doubt you guys have one." Edward asked. Russell and me shook our heads.

-"Well you guys barely have any luggage, I mean each one of you have a back- pack." He commented. -"I think we should take you guys shopping, What ya say Al? How 'bout tomorrow?"Edward suggested exictedly.I looked at my brother with a big smile, I mean I have had these clothes for as long as I can remember.

-"It won't be a bother?"Russell asked.

-"Nah orphans got to look out for each other."Edward responded with a wink.

-"We still got dad, brother."Al suggested.

-"He's dead to me."Edward said flatly. You could hear the hatred in his voice. Al flinched and looked down. I tried to think of something to say to break the tension but...

-"We have arrived at central,enjoy your stay." The conductor announced.

-"Russell look! It's-it's-it's sooooo fancy!" I whispered exictedly. But all he gave me was his 'behave' look. I looked away with shame. Then I felt someone hugging me. I looked up to see Russell giving me a warm smile and a kiss on the forehead.

-"Come on let's go."He said kindly.

* * *

Headquarters is HUGE. We all just stood there staring at the enormous building.

-"Well it's now or never; you guys just follow Alphonse..."Edward paused to look for Alphonse.

-"AL? What are you doing at over at that corner? Get over here!"He demanded.

-"Oh! nothing brother, coming brother."Al said nervously.

-"We'll just stay here."Russell suggested.

-"You sure? It's raining."Edward asked surprised. We nodded,

-"We don't like socializing with state alchemists, no offense."I responded.

-"No worries... we'll be quick."Edward said as he went inside with Alphonse.

-"Do you think we were too rude?"I inquired.

-"No they Understand, I mean they know that state alchemists killed our parents."Russell responded with bitterness in his voice. I remembered the day when our parents were killed. We were eating dinner when this so-called Brigadier General appeared and started yelling at our parents. Our parents were state alchemists but not by choice. They needed to sustain a family, so they joined out of necessity. The Brigadier General wanted our parents to go fight at the Ishabalan War, but refused. That resulted in two shots in the head for my father and a single shot in the stomach for my mother. Russell tried to fight back but was knocked out cold. I was left there alone, standing. Looking at my dead parents... Then I remembered some of the books in dad's study about human alchemy and how you could supposedly revive people. I ran quickly to get the book. I had learned about alchemy since I was four or five so I had pretty good knowledge about alchemy. Quickly I drew a transmutation circle like the one's in the book. Then I draged my parent's bodies to the circle. I followed direcions and started the process. What happend next is indescribable. I suddenly found myself infront of a gate. Then the gate opened, when it opended the world's knowledge started flowing into me. How to use alchemy with out a transmutation cirlce. About creatures that are not human but still live and move around called homunculi. About this miracle stone called the philosopher's stone. But suddenly I felt a hand grab me and started dragging me away from the gate. I yelled and kicked struggling against the hand. Then I turned around to see my brother's smiling face. I calmed down and stopped fighting back. The next thing I knew was that everything was blurry. Russell was missing his left ear and was bleeding from his forehead. He kept telling me something but I couldn't focus. My eyesight kept getting darker and darker until everything was pitch black.

-"You okay Meg?"Russell kept asking frantically. I stood up trying to see something. All I could see was black. Ugly, terrifying black. I felt Russell's embrace.

-"Why can't I see Russell?" I said crying.

-" Meg. Your eyes- never mind that. We'll go see a doctor tomorow."He assured.

-"What about mom and dad?" I asked still crying.

-"I'll go bury them, you go rest." Russell said lovingly. He led me to my room. I layed down thinking about what the doctor was going to tell me tomorrow...

* * *

I had to adapt to my life with out my eyes. Literally. I had to wear really dark sunglasses so people wouldn't get scared of me. It got easier with time because my hear and smell improved. I could tell if there was people in front of me or where to take a turn to get to a certain place on my own. Sure it took two years to develop, but I could take care of myself if I needed to. Since me and Russell were orphans we needed a care taker but our so-called family didn't want the children of state alchemists. We survived on our parents saving account. We only used the money for food and our martial art classes. Russell insisted that if we learned how to fight we could survive better and get some extra money in fights. If I may say so I was pretty good at it, even for being blind. Then everything changed on my twelve birthday. There was a rumor in town that this miracle doctor was coming. Russell took me to an appointment with out hesitation. When we arrive I could tell it was packed since it smelled like smelly armpit. Anyways. When it was our turn, the man welcomed us and started asking questions. Russell responded to all of them. Then i sensed the man come closer and take off my sunglasses. He gasped and stood there for a moment.

-"Human Alchemy." He finally said. -"This girl lost her eyesight because of human transmutation." The doctor said bluntly. We didn't respond.

-"Give me the jar, I'll see what I can do." I sensed the started looking for something. Russell had kept my eyes in a jar and everyday he had used alchemy to keep them fresh, as gross as it sounds. But he had hoped that someday I could have them back. Suddenly I felt a wierd warmth on my eyes. It started to get brighter and brighter. Th first thing I saw was my brother with with his warm smile; he was crying. I ran up to him and gave him a hug. Hahahaha we both couldn't stop crying. I thanked the doctor and asked him how he cured me.

-"With this." He responded showing a small bottle with red liquid.

-"Can you give my brother his ear back?" I asked hopefully.

-"I'm afraid not... but! I can tell you this. If you create a philosopher's stone, you can restore your brother's ear. Here. If you figure out how to open this locket, some clues about the stone will appear."He told us handing me over an old neckalce.

-"What's your name sir?"I asked.

-"Marco." He responded.


	3. Chapter 3

-"It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, suuure Mustang nagged at me. But for my reinstatement exam I am going to fight against that kiss up. I'll teach him to give me some respect!" Edward boasted as he came out of headquarters. He woke me up from my day dreaming.

-"When is the fight?" I asked excitedly.

-"Tomorrow, at sunset." Here responded with a smirk. -"I'm sure we'll be done with our shopping around that time." Edward assured. I nodded with a smile and looked at Russell then noticed he was soaked. It had stopped raining for a while, but we both were soaking wet.

-"You guys hungry? We can go to a cafe and have a nice cup of tea to warm you guys up after you change... Or we can go to our favorite place to eat! you'll love the food there and the place will be really warm so you'll get dry there fast, right Al?" Edward asked but he had a devilish look on his face. Alphonse nodded but he looked kinda nervous.

-"We'll go where ever you think it's best." Russell responded.

-"Great! the place isn't far from here. Come on!" He said as he sprinted. I grabbed my back pack and ran after Edward and Alphonse. I was running while looking down and really didn't notice in which direction we where going in. And when we went inside the building I was oblivious to my surroundings until Edward found a table, then told us to put our stuff down and to follow him to the food line. I realized at that moment that we were surrounded by state alchemists. EVERYWHERE I turned to looked I saw people with that retarded jacket and pants with a skirt attached uniform.

-"I don't think I'm hungry anymore." I said with a disgusted look on my face.

-"Aw come on! this place has great food and it's warm like I promised it would be ." Edward exclaimed with a smirk on his face.

-"Yeah, it's warm. Because it's full of stinky and sweaty state alchemists!" I complained as I got my food set on my tray. Edward just chuckled and signaled me to follow him back to the table.

-"Don't worry, we aren't popular here so no one comes and talks to us ." Alphonse comforted me. We sat down at our table and started eating. Russell hadn't said a word since we got here and didn't looked pleased, yet he didn't complain. I glanced at Edward and saw him stuffing his face. Then looked at Alphonse just sitting there.

-"I'm going to go get some water. Does someone want any?" I asked as I stood up. Edward and Russell raised their hands. I nodded and left to look for the condiments table because usually those have water bottles. I felt people starring at me as I walked, I could hear each one of their conversations. Some of them whispered about how wet I looked and were wondering what was I doing here. I just ignored them. I found the condiments table and started filling some little plastic cups with water, then I put them in a small tray. But as I turned around with the tray, I bumped into a tallish man with dark brown piercing eyes, his dark hair hang a bit over his eyes and his face was a bit baby face round. I starred at him for a moment, I mean he is kinda attractive. But then I noticed that my tray was on the ground and that the plastic cups full of water were dripping down from his uniform.

-"Well, are you just going to stand there or are you going to clean this mess up?" he demanded. 'Cocky jerk-face' I thought. But instead of complaining or talking back I grabbed the cups, put them back on my tray and turned around to leave.

-"Hey! what about cleaning my uniform?" he demanded again. I turned around to punch him but then really noticed how his uniformed looked.

-" Pfft... AHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!" I couldn't control my laughter, the man with a cocky facial expression looked like he pissed himself. When he saw me cracking up he got really red.

-"Don't you know who I am? I deserve more respect!" He started yelling at me with his tomato red colored face. Then I felt someone behind me arrive.

-"Very sorry sir, She'll go get paper towels and apologize." I heard Russell say as he squeezed my shoulder. Suddenly a pretty blonde lady with brown eyes appeared with paper towels beside the cocky man.

-"It's alright, I got it. You may leave." She said kindly as she handed the paper towels to 'jerk-face' man.(thats what I decided to call him.) He left but before he did, he glared at me for a moment. I decided to wink at him just to make him more mad. It worked because his tomatoe colored face got more red.

-"Really Meg, you need to be more careful. He looked like a high ranking official." Russell warned as he helped me clean the floor.

-"Sorry Russell, but he didn't have to be so rude about it. I mean it was just an accident."I said trying to defend myself. Russell shrugged his shoulders and took the tray back to the table. When we arrived no one said nothing but the occasional small talk. Then I felt someone come up behind me.

-"ED! haven't seen ya in a while. How's it been? Have you seen the newest pictures of Alicia? OH! they are just simply just tooo cute!" A guy wearing glasses and a unshaven beard sat between Edward and Al squishing them both. He kept waving around a picture of a little girl holding a teddy bear. I think he noticed me starring at him, fangirling over the picture.

-" Now who is this young lady? ... I bet you wanna see cute Alicia! Isn't she just adorable?" The man said as he shoved the picture into my face.

-"Yes, yes very cute." I responded with annoyance as I pushed his hands back.-"My name is Megan, but just call me Meg." I continued, now that the man had settled down a bit.

-" I'm Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes, call me whatever you want." He said with a warm smile.

-"I thought you weren't very popular." I said sarcastically while glaring at Edward and Alphonse.

-"It's fine Meg, he's nice and we trust him." Al assured. I just scoffed, but that resulted in Russell kicking me under the table.

-"Good thing you came by Hughes, do you know about a doctor that can cure people with just a flash?" Edward asked.

-"You must be talking about Dr. Marco! Yeah I've heard about him." Hughes responded. I glanced at Russell and he nodded and did a 'shush' signal with his hand.

-"Marco is a traitor and a coward!" I heard a man say. I turned around to see how it was. He seemed very familiar... -"Do not speak about Marco ever again, you understand? He left in the middle of the Ishabalan rebellion." He continued.

-"Brigadier General Basques Grand or the Iron Blood Alchemist. How nice to see you! Have you seen the new picture of Alicia?" Hughes chased after him trying to show him the picture. Brigadier General... now that I think of it the way he looked and talked seemed very familiar. But he couldn't be the guy that killed our parents...

-"He always ruins everything." Edward said with a yawn. -"We should go and rest, just follow me." He continued yawning again. I grabbed my back pack and followed. I looked at Russell and his facial expression looked as if he had seen a ghost. He noticed me starring and smiled back. But his smile was very faint. I knew something was wrong but before I could say something he sprinted up to Edward and started talking about the plans for tomorrow.

-"Hope the place we're going isn't like this one." I commented. Al just chuckled and shook his head.

-"Nah, we always go to a hotel or something." He assured. -"Your brother turned pale when he saw the Iron Blood alchemist... Is he the one that- "

-" I don't know, he seemed very familiar in every way. But if I ask Russell he'll either change the subject or not respond." I responded.

-"It doesn't matter anymore, right? I mean you told me that after your parents died you started a new life and forgot your past." Alphonse said to comfort me, then he patted me on the back. I smiled back at him.

-"You know what Al? your right, it doesn't matter anymore! Thanks, you always know how to cheer me up! " I exclaimed. Then I pushed him to the side and sprinted towards Edward and Russell while sticking my tongue out. Alphonse giggled and ran after me.

* * *

The next day we went through every shop we could find. Around 5 o'clock we had finished shopping and were eating a quick dinner so that Edward could get his strength back for the fight that was happen in an hour. Edward and Alphonse bought me ten new T-shirts, five formal blouses, six pairs of jeans, four pairs of shorts, three pairs of tennis shoes and two dresses that I refused to wear but were still were bought anyways " For special occasions" Russell had said. Also they bought a suitcase so I could put away my new clothes. We left the cafe and called a cab to take us to head quarters. On the trip there Edward kept bragging about how good it would feel to see Roy's face of defeat and that he might even get a few scars on Roy's face from all the punching. Russell and me just looked at each other and laughed in silence. When we got there hundreds of state alchemists were waiting for the fight to start. Then Hughes appeared on a stand with a microphone and started fangirling again about his daughter Alicia's birthday. But was interrupted with flying rocks and trash. After all the ruckus, Hughes continued to announce the names of the fighters, when he announced Edward's name people started cheering when he stepped forward. Then Hughes announced Roy Mustang's name. Half of the crowd cheered and half 'booed' him, then when he stepped forward into the light I realized that Roy Mustang was actually the guy that I bumped into yesterday. I looked at my brother with a nervous facial expression, he just patted my back and gave me warm smile as if saying " It'll be alright". BANG! a gun shot was heard and the fight started. But before anyone could notice Roy Mustang took his right hand out of his pocket and made the air explode, it almost hit Edward but he dodged just in time and flung himself into the crowd. He kept throwing flames everywhere but he used no transmutation circle.

-"Those flames are coming out of nowhere!" I heard an alchemist exclaim.

-"Ah, this is the first time you've seen the colonel do that?" another alchemist said.-"His right glove is made of a special fabric, called ignition cloth. If you rub it hard, it creates sparks. All that's left for him is to adjust the density of oxygen in the air, and boom!" He explained to his fellow alchemist. I've never heard of such a thing and was quite interested in hearing more but Edward's screams wouldn't let me focus.

-"It sure is hard to hit such a small target!" Roy Mustang exclaimed.

-"Don't call me small!" Edward yelled as he jumped up on the alchemists to yell at Mustang.

-"Don't be taunted by your opponent." Roy Mustang said mockingly. Then he threw fire explosions where Edward was, hitting the alchemists that were next to him also. But he over did it and a bunch of smoke was left. Edward use this to his advantage and made a dummy out of rock and when Roy Mustang realized it, Edward had ambushed him and cut his right glove with his auto mail arm that was in form of a knife. Surprisingly Roy smiled and pulled his left hand out of his pocket to send more explosions. But before he could do anymore harm, a man with a mustache and an eyepatch appeared to call off the fight. Edward complained but then the eyepatch man made him realize all the damage that the had caused to the courtyard. Then Edward and Mustang were told to clean up the mess.

-"You don't have to help guys." Edward said to Alphonse, Russell and I.

-"If we all work together and use our alchemy, you can finish up faster." Al responded. Russell nodded but I just kept on sweeping. I had made a promise not to use alchemy unless it was absolutely necessary the day I learned what had Russell done and lost his left ear just to take me out of the transmutation circle. Alphonse and Russell drew transmutation circles to repair the floor. Edward shrugged and left to got speak to Roy that was just sitting on a rock doing nothing. Since I have great hearing I decided to eavesdrop on their conversation.

-"Why did you hesitate?" Edward demanded.

-" Lets just say I've had my share of horrible things at war... I lied when I told you that I knew nothing about Dr. Marco. He used to be my comrade, but one day he left because he didn't want anymore harm to come to Ishbal. The day he left, he left with the philosopher's stones he had made." Roy Mustang responded looking down. I moved closer to hear the whereabouts of Dr. Marco. -"But I don't know where he is at the moment... no one does Ed." He continued. I sighed. Roy must of heard me because he called me over.

-"Ed, do you know this girl? Because she has been eavesdropping on our conversation." He said grabbing me by the arm tightly.

-"Yeah, no worries. She's been traveling with us lately, and her older brother too." He responded pointing towards where Russell was drawing a transmutation circle. Roy let me go but glared at me.

-"My name is Meg and my brother's name is Russell. Meg is short for Megan." I explained but he wasn't paying attention to me. He was starring at my brother repair the concrete floor with his circles. 'Creeper' I thought.

-"Tell me 'Meg', do you know how to use alchemy too?" Roy asked directing his attention to me. I nodded.

-"But I don't use it unless I think it is necessary. Not since what happened to Russell." I explained.

-"What happened?" Roy asked with a smirk on his face as if saying ' what a immature child'. I simply turned around and started sweeping the floor. I didn't like his rudeness. He pushed me trying to get my attention and I almost fell. I sighed and kept sweeping.

-"If you must know, to keep the story short and sweet. Basically my parents were killed because they refused to help the military invade Ishbal, so the only thing I could think as a ten year old was to use Human transmutation. But in the middle of the process Russell pulled me out of the circle and as a result he lost his left ear, and I lost my eyes." I responded still not turning around. I sensed he was sorta confused by the last sentence, but said nothing.

-"Meg told me that on her twelve birthday some doctor gave her back her eyes." Edward said in response of Roy's confusion. I heard Roy mumble to himself something about how foolish me and Edward was but that it couldn't be help since we were needy, immature children. I ignored the comment and started to pick up a big rock. Suddenly there was a blast and the rock toppled over, I quickly clapped my hands together to make a barrier before the big rock could fall over me. Furiously I turned around and was about to punch Roy when he started chuckling to himself. I don't know why put his laughter made me just stand there and stare at him in awe. Roy Mustang turned to Edward.

-"So what are you going to do about Dr. Marco." He asked, still chuckling a bit.

-"We are leaving tomorrow to find him." Edward responded walking towards me. Roy stood up and a smirk appeared on his face. Edward signaled me to follow him. I nodded but before I started walking I felt a hand on my shoulder.

-"You are quite talented Meg, if you ever want to join the military you know who to look for." Roy whispered in my ear. I flinched and turned around to find his face right in front of mine. He chuckled a bit more.

-" Hope to see you soon. You are... a very interesting young lady. Meg, take care. I would like to have a nice chat with you when you get back from your little adventures with Edward." He let go of my shoulder and left. I could feel myself blushing. I walked towards Alphonse, Russell and Edward. Edward noticed me and smiled.

-"We're are leaving to go find Dr. Marco, go get ready."He said with a confident smile on his face and fire in his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

We traveled by foot to arrive to this town that was some what close to East headquarters. Rumor had it that Dr. Marco possibly was living in that town for some time now. When we arrived Edward immediately started asking the residents about the town doctor. Every one that was asked, told us that he was a miracle doctor and that he could cure any sickness you could possibly think of. I tried to hide my smile, but Al noticed. He kept asking the reason of my smiles and I kept telling him it was nothing. Al knows me too well and instead of asking, he would just stare at me to make me feel guilty and uncomfortable; trying to get the truth out of me. I would shove his face out of the way and stick my tongue out. But Russell noticed soon afterwards, which resulted in a noogie. I complained but he just chuckled, and the three of us started chasing each other; playing like children, knocking Edward into a pile of hay. We all started laughing but suddenly Edward pulled us in the pile of hay and shushed us.

-"What's wrong brother?" Alphonse asked intently in a whisper.

-"Someone has been following us." Edward whispered in response motioning us to look to the right. Suddenly a tall, buff man stepped into the road looking for something. He had a single blonde curly on his bald head and a blonde mustache to decorate his buff face. Not able to find what he was looking for, he started to leave. We all quickly sneaked out of the pile of hay, trying to find something to hide our presence. After we thought the coast was clear, we brushed the hay off our clothes.

-"That's enough researching. Let's go to Dr. Marco's house." Edward said, we all nodded and left.

* * *

The moment Edward knocked on the door, bullets flew out. Russell pushed me down and tucked next to me.

-" I-I-I won't go back there! You can't make me go back to the military!" I heard a man say.

-"Relax, sir. We aren't here to take you back, we just want some information about the philosopher's stone." The moment Edward said 'philosopher stone' another bullet was shot. Alphonse then intervened.

-"Sir, please calm down. We won't harm you, we just have a few questions we need to have answered." Alphonse assured calmly. Come to think of it Al always knows how to calm people down, a quality I wish I had...

-"Very well, you two may come in." The man sighed.

-"Wait! What about us?" I demanded as I jumped up. The moment I jumped up the man's face brightened up and a smile appeared on his stern face.

-"Well, well if it isn't the blind girl." Dr. Marco said. Russell and I looked at eachother then ran up to Marco to hug him. He chuckled and asked how was our research going as we walked inside. We told him how we teamed up with Edward and Alphonse to speed things up and that we were learning a lot about the philosopher's stone with them. Also we told him how we had become good friends and all of our adventures with the Elric Brothers. Then Edward started discussing with Marco about the philosopher's stone, Dr. Marco said very little and wasn't helping much. Edward was getting impatient and in one of his temper tantrums, he found a secret door that had a bunch of bottles with red liquid in it. But the color of red in this liquid was very different, it somehow looked cleaner. Edward picked it up but it fell, the moment it fell the bottle broke and the red liquid formed into a rock. Suddenly the door burst open and a bunch of state militaries came in and pointed guns at us. We were about to fight back when the Iron Blood alchemist came in.

-"Dr. Marco, you're coming with us." He ordered. Dr. Marco started panicking, I looked at Edward and Al waiting for them to do something. Marco was struggling against the military, I was growing impatient. Quickly I slid under the state dogs and tripped the ones that were apprehending Dr. Marco. I stood in front of Marco and changed into battle position.

-" Little girl, get away from him this instant! Or you WILL be shot." Brigadier General Basques Grand ordered. I shook my head but I felt a hand on my shoulder, it was Marco's. He gave me a warm smile like the ones Russell gives me to tell me that everything is going to be alright. I nodded and stepped aside but glared at the Brigadier General. This time Dr. Marco voluntarily let the military take him. We all went outside to see what was gonna happen to Marco, I held to Russell's arm as we walked out. They shoved Marco inside the car, I glanced at Edward to see his reaction. He was trembling, then suddenly he mumbled something and started chasing after the car. We all followed, it had started raining. Suddenly the car came to an abrupt stop, I saw a man with dark skin and a 'X' shaped scar on his face in front of the car. Brigadier General Basques Grand came out furiously, ready to fight the man. Right after him all the military dogs came out and Marco with them. The Iron Blood alchemist made the floor into a bunch of guns and tanks. But before he could really do anything with them, the man's right arm grabbed his face. Suddenly a red flash appeared along the scarred man's arm and the Brigadier General's head started spewing blood. Scarred man let go and the Iron Blood alchemist fell down. There he laid, motionless. Dead. I too, was motionless. Stunned from what I had just witnessed.

-"Now it's your turn to pay for your sins." The scarred man said to Dr. Marco, who also stood motionless. I wanted to yell '_RUN' _, but couldn't gather the strength. Then Edward clapped his hands together and pushed the scarred man away from Marco by turning the floor into spikes.

-"Come on! Run old man!" He exclaimed as he grabbed Marco by the hand. He sprinted by us, Russelled followed but I still couldn't move. I felt someone pick me up and put me on his metal shoulders. I look at Alphonse in awe, he returned my stare by just giggling and running faster. Everywhere we turned the man kept chasing us, until he blocked us into an ally by putting a wall in every exit.

-" It's ok, I deserve it." Marco said, stepping forward.

-" Don't be stupid!" Edward exclaimed. That made scarred man direct his attention to Edward.

-"You are Edward Elric, Yes?" The man asked.

-"Yeah, why?" Edward responded getting into fighting stance.

-"You must pay for your sins, too." He commented as he put his right arm on the wall. Then the wall next to Edward exploded but Ed ducked in time.

-"Why are you after us?" Edward demanded.

-" If there are creators, there must be a destroyer." The man said. Edward just scoffed, grabbed a pipe that was next to him and made it into a small sword. Alphonse put me down and got into a fighting position. Russell and I did the same. The scarred man just grunted and said something about how Edward's look in his eyes was similar to his older brother's strong, peering eyes. Edward sprinted towards the man and tried to slash his face but scarred man ducked.

-"Too slow." He mocked and aimed his right hand towards Edward's face.

-"Brother!" Al exclaimed as he ran to protect Edward putting his arm in front blocking the blow. It made a dent in Alphonse's armor. Al covered the dent in his right arm with his other arm.

-"Make no mistake. That was meant for your brother, but if you interfere I will destroy you. Stay out of this, my only enemies are the state alchemists." The man said.

-"Why? why are you after us?" Edward demanded to know.

-"Alchemists are those who take things from their natural form and transform them into something grotesque. That is to say, they profane God, the creator of all things. As an agent of God, I am he who hands down his judgment." He replied with hatred in his voice showing his right hand. Marco looked down with shame when he heard this. '_This guy is crazy' _I thought, '_And pathetic, using God as an excuse to murder people just to fill his ego.'_ I didn't like this guy at all.

-"So what? I'm an alchemist too!" I yelled furiously.

-"Yeah, me too! I just don't have the state's certification..." Alphonse chimed in.

-"Why do you wish to die?" The scarred man asked.

-You know how you mentioned your older brother just a moment ago? You should understand! There's no way I could watch my Big brother get killed." Al explained. Me and Russell nodded.

-"Even you-" I began to say.

-"I do understand!" Scarred man exclaimed. -"I watched my older brother get killed right before my eyes, and the way I felt was... That is exactly why I must now!" He continued but before he could finish Edward charged at him. But before he could do any harm to Scarred man, Scarred man grabbed his metal arm.

-"I told you, you're too slow." Was heard as a red flash appeared near Edward's metal arm. Edward was pushed back but Russell caught him. Scarred man look at his hand confused. Russell helped Ed get up and as he got up Scarred man said.

-" Automail? … So your right arm brings forth nothing but destruction as well?

-"Don't go lumping my right arm with yours!" Edward warned as he clapped his hands to make his automail into a knife. But as he charged over an explosion took place and destroyed on of the walls that were blocking our exit. Then a buff man stepped forward.

-"A state alchemist?" I exclaimed. -"Are you here to take Marco?" I said as I stepped in front of Marco. But the state alchemist said nothing and walked right passed us. He looked like the man from earlier that was following us. When he got to where Edward and Russell was standing , he put his hand on Edward's shoulder.

-"I'm sorry I'm late, I was assigned by the Lt. Colonel to guard you." Buff man said.

-"By Hughes?" Edward asked with his eyes and mouth wide open. Buff man just nodded and challenged Scarred man.

-"Try passing judgment on me! For I am the Strong Arm alchemist, Alex Louis Armstrong!" Armstrong exclaimed shielding Edward. Scarred man gasped then a big smirk appeared on his tan face.

-"What a fine day this is! You coming here, saved me the trouble of hunting you down... Could this be the grace of God?" He exclaimed.

-"Let me show you artistic alchemy. This has been passed down among the Armstrong family for generations!" Armstrong bragged as he threw a big rock to the air then punched it. Emitting a big shock wave that was flung towards Scarred man... Maybe I should just call him Scar for short. Scar moved to the side making the shot miss.

-"Another shot!" Armstrong yelled as he hit the floor and this time lighting came from the floor making a spiked trail towards Scar. Scar dodged each spike then he used the spike next to him to his advantage. I took the opportunity to escape.

-"Guys follow me!" I yelled as I grabbed Marco and made a run for it. Soon after Al, Edward and Russell were beside me running. I had noticed that when Armstrong had made the wall explode a light was visible, that meant that it led outside. We all kept running towards the light with all our might and when we finally got outside Marco fell to the floor gasping. I glanced at Edward and he was panting, as was Russell. I felt proud to be the only other than Al that wasn't gasping for air.

-"You dropped this." Edward said as he handed the clear red stone to Dr. Marco. But he looked surprised by Ed's actions.

-"You didn't think of running away with this?" He asked Edward.

-"I can't forget the faces of the people who talked about you today. That stone belongs to the people, and so do you." Edward explained with a warm smile on his face. Dr. Marco look touched , he clutched the stone.

-" Do you guys still have energy to at least walk? We need to find a place where neither the military or that guy can find us." I asked a bit concerned.

-"We can escape them?" Marco asked nervously.

-"You got legs, don't you?" I responded with a warm smile. Russell nodded and gave him _'It'll be okay'_ look. Dr. Marco let out a relieved sigh.

* * *

We sneaked around town by going through alleys and remote corners, the times we saw a military car we hid with the crowd or stayed in the corner we were in. It still was raining and I was getting concerned for Ed's and Marco's health. All we wanted to do was to stay away from that creep. More military cars passed by but this time it wasn't cars, they were trucks. Which meant this matter was very serious. We went through the back door of a nearby restaurant to an alley that was full of little kids playing soccer. Dr. Marco gazed at the children with a sad look on his face.

-"... I've had enough." He exclaimed, we all looked at him confused. -" I don't care if I get killed by that man, he has the right to do so." Marco continued.

-" If he's of the Ishbalan people, why do you have to be killed by him?" Edward inquired.

-" They started a rebellion, right?" Al asked.

-" If whoever lost the war swore revenge, there be no end to it." Edward commented.

-"That was no war... It was a massacre. Ishbalans lived in the Eastern region, they believed in Ishbala as the one and only. They held values that were different from ours, we thought that the world was mathematically determined and the idea of equivalent exchange of alchemy. But the Ishbalans thought of it as the work of the devil, as a result, there were resistance movements. But one day as an officer was conducting an investigation she accidentally shot a child. That accident lead to the outbreak of large-scale uprisings and riots. Before long the whole rebellion spread out throughout the whole Eastern Region, and became a war that lasted seven years. Then the higher ups decided to employ state alchemists. I was forced to fabricate and bring the red stones. They were still in research and I argued that there was no use in needing them since we had better technology. But my pleas were no use. They used the stones to become weapons of mass destruction. The alchemists that were handed stones were forced to commit genocide... On the battlefield I met this couple. They were doctors and would treat people, irrespective of whether they were friend or foe. However, Basques Grand had made Roy kill them just because they were helping Ishbalan people, according to him once the Ishbalans were healed they would rise up in arms against the military. That night I decided to leave. I went back to the place where the doctors were murdered to find Roy to tell him that I was leaving. He agreed to keep it a secret, so I left with the Philosopher's stones, and all materials relating to them. But either way it was too late, afterwards I heard there was only a handful of survivors." Marco explained with grief in his voice.

-"Even so, that's no reason for you to be killed." Russell complained. -" He's reasons for revenge are somewhat legitimate, but there is no legitimacy for his revenge when he drags people who aren't involved in it! What he is doing is wrapping his ugly lust for vengeance up inside his claim of being God's agent, and acting like it's noble. Nothing more." I could tell Russell was very upset.

-"Because taking revenge brings nothing back but more trouble." I mumbled -"All that people need to do is live... live and find happiness." I felt like crying, but I had to show that I am strong. Strong enough to protect my new found family. I was looking down so that no one could see my face. Russell held me tight and Marco patted me on the back. I looked up and saw Edward repairing Al's armor.

-"Marco why don't you come with us to Resembool? We can all stay with the Rockbells!" Edward exclaimed with a warm smile on his face. But Marco's face was full of terror and shame the moment he heard the word _'Rockbell', _he shook his head and ran away. Confused we all ran after him. I heard some gunshots and had the faint smell of a familiar person. I told Russell I was going to find something out. He nodded and told me to find them in 10 minutes, I sprinted and waved back. I could hear Edward yelling at Marco and then at me, then I heard Russell explain what was happening. As weird as this sounds I followed my nose to the familiar scent, I still didn't know who it was from but somehow I just wanted to go to the person emitting that smell. I heard more gunshots and ground breaking, I began to run faster until-

-"That's far enough!" I heard Mustang say.

-"Mustang? The state alchemist?" Scar asked squinting his eyes.

-"Indeed I am. " Roy threw his gun to the blonde lady I had seen before, with smirk and went into battle position.

-"Still wanting to fight me knowing that I am the Flame alchemist?" Roy mocked. The blonde lady looked shocked. Scar took no time to think and charged towards Mustang, Roy smirked and went forward taking his right hand out of his pocket. '_wait if he's the Flame alchemist and it's raining.."_

-"Colonel!" the blonde lady yelled as she kicked Roy's feet to trip him. Then she started shooting at Scar. I decided to help and came out of the alley I was in, clapped my hands and made the ground spike up where Scar was on. I glanced at where Roy and Blondy were, I started walking over there.

-"What the hell? Why did you do that Hawkeye?" He complained. I started chuckling because Roy hadn't figured out he was no good on rainy days.

-You're useless on rainy days, Sir. So please just stay back." Hawkeye responded bluntly. Roy's look on his face was priceless! He looked like he was in utter despair. And he must have cause he didn't notice my presence. Scar heard the conversation and took the chance to escape. Hawkeye muttered something about Scar being fast.

-"After him! Lt. Breda, Second Lt. Havoc, Lt. Hawkeye and Meg! Go look for Fullmetal, Marco must be with him... MEG? What the hell are you doing here?" Roy yelled, demanding to know. I just chuckled then noticed that the scent was coming from him... I did a facepalm.

-"Nothing, I'm leaving to go back to Russell and the rest." I murmured still facepalming. Then I sniffed the air and found Russell's scent. I quickly scurried away so that Roy wouldn't follow me. But soon after a black car was behind me, I clapped my hands and made the floor give me a boost. Making sure they were far behind I did a left turn into an alley where Russell's and Edward's scent was strong. But when I got there half of Alphonse's armor was in pieces and Scar was walking towards Marco. I quickly covered Marco with rock and steel shield. Scar then noticed my presence and charged towards me. But I dodged his attack and made a pipe that was sticking out of the ground, into a sword. Scar charged again and the moment his right arm came near me I slashed it. But it only scratched it, Edward joined the fight. We both dogded and tried attacking back. But in one of Edward's attempted to fight back Scar grabbed his automail arm and destroyed it. In a flash he turned around and aimed for my stomach, but I quickly blocked his blow with my sword. Then I saw a red flash and before I knew it I was on the ground, bleeding from my stomach.

-"I will give you a moment to pray." Scar said as he put his right hand on my face. Suddenly Scar fell quickly and Russell helped me to my feet.

-"Is it deep?" He asked.

-"Nah, it's fine. I can still fight." I answered with a smile, he smiled back and drew a transmutation circle on the ground. Russell made a cage out of the ground which formed around Scar. We both ran towards Edward but Scar grabbed my ankle and threw me to the wall, Scar advanced towards Edward while preparing his right hand. Russell stepped in front of Edward.

-" Get out of the way boy." Scar warned. Russell shook his head.

-"It's ok Russell, I'll be fine." Edward said pushed Russell aside.

-"Brother! No! Don't do this, there's other ways!" Alphonse yelled.

-"Shush. Scar, will you promise me that you won't hurt them anymore?" Edward asked.

-"If they do not interfere anymore, yes." Scar replied. I gathered the strength to stand up.

-"Brother! What are you doing? Get out of there! RUN AWAY!" Alphonse exclaimed. I saw Russell get a bit closer to where Scar was. Scar put his hand on Edward.

-"STOP! Please stop!" Al cried. Scar's arm started glowing. Suddenly Ed was pushed aside and Russell was in front of Scar.

-"Russell, NO! " I yelled. Then I saw Russell smile at me as Scar's red arm glowed red once more.

SPLAT.

-"Don't look!" I heard as I felt a hand wrapped around my face and took me towards the person's chest. I struggled against the person. Then I heard gunshots and someone running.

-"Stay still." It was Mustang. I stopped struggling and he loosened his grip but didn't let me go.

-"Get a blanket over him." Mustang ordered.


	5. Chapter 5

Mustang never let me see Russell. After a while of being held by him, he took me to his car with the excuse '_You're going to catch a cold'. _Soon afterwards the Elric brothers followed. We all sat there soaked in the car and in absolute silence. They had a fight when they were outside; Alphonse was mad at Ed because instead of struggling for survival, he had just given up. There was a tap on the window. It was Marco. I rolled the window down and could see the sad expression on Marco's face. Surprisingly he hugged me tightly through the window.

-"Be strong, ok?" Marco whispered, then dropped a piece of paper. Edward opened it, read it, and then nodded. Marco smiled faintly as the military took him away. I rolled up the window while Edward showed me the paper, '_Fifth Branch Section xx' _it read.

-"You think clues about the philosopher's stone are there?" I inquired hopefully. Alphonse and Ed both nodded with a smile on their faces. But I could see the pity in their eyes, I felt like crying… but the only people I've cried in front of were my family. Now they are all gone… I was the only one left. Alone. The word started to torment me; it started to fill my chest of fear.

-"We-we- we'll look away if you want. Just… let it out." Al said as he patted my shoulder. I glanced at both of the brothers and noticed Edward's face. It reminded me of Russell's face right before I lost my eyesight. I remembered Russell's semi-curly light brown hair, his emerald green eyes. His warm smile he would give me to feel better. I started to cry uncontrollably. I wept and wept. Edward and Alphonse respected my crying and looked out the left window. I remembered all the times Russell and I laughed, the times we struggled together. All the adventures we had. Russell was probably with mom and dad now. He wouldn't want me to cry too much, he would let me cry a bit but then say.

-"That's enough Meg. It's time to be tough." Then Russell would kiss my forehead. '_Alright, it's enough' _I thought. I wiped my tears away and held my head up high.

-"It's ok, you can look now…. Thank you." I said with much gratitude as the Elric brothers turned around. Edward opened his arms wide open and gave me hug. I giggled then hugged him back.

-"I don't know if I'll be as great as Russell. But! I want to become your become your big brother." Edward proposed, I nodded and hugged him tighter. He chuckled.

-"We'll be your new family Meg!" Alphonse chimed in. We all did a big group hug.

-"AHEM."I heard someone say as the front door of the car opened. We all sat back in our seats, blushing.

-"Mustang! They were having a moment. Don't be so rude." Hawkeye scolded. Roy shrugged his shoulders, then started driving towards East headquarters.

* * *

When we arrived they took us to a hotel to stay for the night. It was too late for dinner so Ed and I decided to change into our night wear and get some rest.

* * *

I tossed and turned, I tried to count sheep, I tried to think about alchemy equations and transmutation circles. Giving up on sleep, I looked out the window that was next to my bed and saw the beautiful moonlight that hit my face. I looked at it for a long time, but didn't feel sleepy yet. I glanced at Edward to see him snoring away in his dreams and chuckled to myself. I laid down again and tried to think of boring things like encyclopedia's, dictionaries, lectures, annoying people that give lectures, Roy Mustang's face…

-"Pfft hehehehe." I couldn't control myself. I had remembered his pissed off face when I first met him at the cafeteria.

-"You awake Meg?" I heard Al whisper. I quickly stood up and walked towards the armor that was sitting next to my window frame.

-"Whenever you can't sleep talk to me, okay? I don't have anything else better to do anyways." Alphonse joked. I giggled and realized that because he was just a suit of armor he couldn't sleep, I also realized that he spent most nights alone, sitting in the darkness.

-"If I do be prepared to hear me babble on and on." I joked elbowing him in the stomach.

-"I think I would very much like that." Al responded warmly, I don't know why but those words struck me hard in the chest. I smiled and pushed Al to the side. We both giggled and just sat there for a while.

-"Russell would sometimes wake up and have a conversation with me at night." Alphonse commented. I looked at him surprised.

-"I miss him already… hah sorry." I apologized quickly.

-"No it's ok. If Ed was the one that died I would be doing the same thing." Al comforted, I got a warm feeling in my chest from his words of comfort. I smiled and hit his metal head.

-"Hey! What was that for?" He complained.

-"It's to make you stop talking about Russell; it's going to make me cry again. But… thanks for telling me." I responded looking down with embarrassment.

-"Hehe I don't understand what you just said, but your welcome… Please don't hit me." He begged. I chuckled and shook my head. I looked at Al and felt like hugging him. I hesitated a bit but something about him made me feel… weird, but a good weird. '_Listen to yourself, you sound retarded.' _I thought. I shook those thoughts out of head and put my arms around Alphonse's metal neck. He put his head on my shoulder since he didn't have arms to hug back. Though Alphonse's metal was cold I got a warm feeling from embracing him. I let go because I noticed we had been hugging for a while now. I was grateful for the darkness because I didn't want Al to see me blushing.

-"When I get my body back can you give me a hug? I would like to know how it feels to be hugged by you, Meg." Alphonse asked. '_Very grateful for this darkness.'_ I thought as my face got bright red.

-"Haha of course! It would be an honor; the moment you get it back I'll run up to you and hug you." I responded getting that weird but good feeling. –"YAAAWN." I was starting to feel sleepy… The next thing I knew I was dreaming about Edward and Alphonse getting their bodies back with Russell in the background giving them a thumbs up.

* * *

-"Well isn't this cute? Rise and shine starlight." I heard a man mock. He was walking around while chuckling. '_How annoying'_ I thought still not opening my eyes.

-"Oh my! A love scene." It sounded like Roy's voice and his scent was strong just as if he was right in front of me… I opened my eyes to confirm that and—

-"OH MY GOSH!" The moment I opened my eyes I saw Roy's face literally 1cm away from mine. I jumped back and hit my head with the wall. Roy started laughing his butt off. I could see that his men were chuckling in the background; I felt my face get really red. I was about to punch Roy in the face but Alphonse blocked the attack.

-"Come on, Roy. It's early in the morning, cut us some slack." Edward defended.

-"Well I couldn't help myself; Meg here was resting her head on Al's shoulder." Roy responded. I felt my face go red again.

-"Stop making fun of them." Hawkeye scolded.

-"I think he's jealous." Edward teased with a smirk on his face. Roy flinched and blushed a little, Al and I started giggling.

-"Let's get down to business, Edward what are you going to do about your auto mail?" Armstrong asked as he entered the room.

-"Huh? Oh well that's easy! We just need to go pay a visit to our auto mail engineer. She lives in Resembool, we need to leave right now though." Edward informed.

-"Well ok, But you need an escort. Scar might be still after you… Who wants to accompany the Elric brothers plus Meg to Resembool?" Roy asked his men. Each one of them gave an excuse about how they were busy this week and how they couldn't leave their family or girlfriend. _'Useless idiots.'_ I thought as I sighed, _'They'll be fine on their own.' _I raised my hand for my turn to talk. Roy nodded in my direction, I sighed again.

-"Do they really need an escort? I mean it's just a day or two trip, Edward and Al are more capable than most people in this room." I commented with annoyance in my voice. Mustang scoffed at me and was about to say something when Armstrong butted in.

-'I'll go; Lt. Colonel Hughes gave me the assignment of taking care of the Elric brothers." He volunteered. Roy nodded and told Ed and Alphonse to pack up, I just stood there watching. I felt someone glaring at me, I looked around and found out Roy was the glaring person. I did a '_what?'_ motion with my head.

-"Aren't you going to pack up too?" He asked still with the glare. I shook my head and motioned him over. When he got to the corner I was in, I motioned him again to get closer.

-"I want to become a state alchemist." I whispered in his ear. He looked at me surprised but that changed quickly into a smirk.

-"Well, well, well! The state alchemist hater decided to become one herself!" Roy exclaimed. I shushed him but he kept moving around and chuckling. -"Haha Meg you have told the right person. Hmm… well the state alchemist exam is in three days, you think you're prepared enough?" Mustang asked while rubbing his chin.

-"I'll be fine; I already know everything there is to know about alchemy. I just need to know the rules, what I'll be tested on and how I am going to be tested." I responded as he still kept rubbing his chin… I slapped his hand away from his face, it was getting annoying. Roy glared at me then sighed.

-"Very well, go to my office after you see the Elric brothers off." He ordered as he left to talk to Hawkeye.

* * *

-"You sure you don't want to come? The Rockbells are really nice and Resembool is our home town… I would like you to see it." Al said trying to convince me, I shook my head with a warm on my face.

-"Nah I can't, I got some things to do. I'll go visit Resembool some other time." I assured still smiling. '_It was just going to be a few days that they were going to be away' _I thought. I could tell everyone was sad about our separation. I hugged Edward, Alphonse and … Armstrong cause he was crying. I waved good bye as the train departed, but as it departed I heard Edward say -"Al why are you so sad? We'll see Meg in a few days… Haha I've never seen you this sad, cheer up!" Then I heard a slap on armor, I bet Ed slapped Alphonse on the back. I smiled to myself after hearing what Edward said.

* * *

_Knock – Knock._

-"Come in." I heard Hawkeye say. I opened the door to find a big room filled of men either walking around with papers or sitting down on typewriter. As I walked to the big desk at the end of the room I noticed some of the guys that were working I had seen at the showdown with Scar. Then I noticed Roy was on his desk with his feet up on his desk with newspaper covering his face. When I got the Roy's desk I just stood there waiting for him to say something, but then I heard a faint snore coming from behind the newspaper. I smirked and ran to go get a black marker; I wasn't going to let this opportunity slip away. I ran back to his desk but to the back side and carefully lifted the newspaper a bit. I took the marker and started drawing on his face. '_If he likes to rub his chin, let's give him something to rub at.' _I thought as I finished my artwork on his face. I quickly ran to put the marker where it belongs and found Hawkeye helping this guy with dark hair and glasses called Fuery. She noticed my presence and smiled at me.

-"Um… Roy's asleep." I said pointing to the desk. She sighed and went over to wake him up by gently moving his feet off the desk. She came back to where Fuery and I were.

-"Sooo, whatcha up to?" I asked Fuery. He started talking about how he was fixing the radio for Mustang; Fuery also said that he was a Mechanics and Communication Specialist. I then asked him that if he could teach me a bit about that subject since I don't like to rely on alchemy. He nodded his head and gave me warm smile. Then I heard the whole room burst out laughing, as I turned around to see Roy; Hawkeye gave me scolding look but then chuckled and gave me a thumbs up. When I saw Roy's expression of confusion, I couldn't control my laughter. This gave me away because –

-"MEG! It was your doing wasn't it?" Roy yelled as he walked up to me. The only thing I could do in my defense was shrug my shoulders and smirk. Roy grunted and just left me alone.

-"Your got lucky." Hawkeye whispered. I giggled and followed Mustang to his desk, he handed me some papers.

-"You've got three days to memorize ALL of this. Top to bottom and bottom to top, you understand?" He said firmly, I nodded and slouched on the floor leaning my back on his desk. I started reading the papers over and over and over again. I mumbled to myself alchemy phrases for what it seemed until dinner.

-"I brought some food, I'm not sure if you allergic to anything so I brought everything they were serving." Hawkeye said as she put down the platter of food next to me.

-"Thanks Hawkeye! I'm starving." I exclaimed as I started gobbling up the food.

-"Just call me Riza, okay? Hmm well, then why didn't you come with us to the cafeteria when it was time for dinner?" She asked intently.

-"I'm studying, I usually take one or two breaks. Plus I wanted to be away from those state dogs for a while." I responded with my mouth full of food.

-"Well I happen to be a state dog too as a matter of fact… Even so, you'll have to get used to it since you're going to become one too Meg." Riza said sternly, I shrugged my shoulders and kept eating.

-"Well I figured out something, Riza. I found out a way of not having to be around the state military often, even more than Ed does. I'll have to answer to only a few people and _**I**_ get to choose those people." I replied with pride in my voice. Riza chuckled and ruffled my hair a little; I don't know why she reminded me of my mom a bit.

-"Are you going to let me in your little secret?" She asked with hope in her eyes. I shook my head and giggled. Then I heard someone enter the room, the figure looked tall and his body language suggested that he was tired. I squinted my eyes so I could see who it was since it was dark.

-"Let's go Meg, enough studying for one day." Roy ordered, I cleaned my face and gave the plate to Riza while giving her thanks. As I quickly gathered the papers and ran out Roy yawned and rubbed his eyes. _'He had two naps today and he's still tired.' _I thought as we continued to walk.

-"Where are we going? Are you going to take me back to the hotel me, Ed and Alphonse stayed last night?" I inquired.

-"You said it wrong; it's Ed, Alphonse and I. And no, we are going to my place. You are to sleep there until the Elric brothers return or some other person I trust wants to take you in. Which, I highly doubt they would like to sleep under the same roof as you since you are quite the face artist." Roy blabbed as we got to his car.

-"Why thank you! Wait I'M going to be at YOUR house? Whaaat? No, no, no I don't trust you, you're a guy and I'm a girl! I will not take any chances." I complained, refusing to get in the car.

-"Relax; I only go for the pretty girls. Plus Edward told me you sleep with a knife in your hand." Roy said with a chuckled as opened the car's passenger door. –"After you." He mocked with a wink. I held my head up high as I entered the car and without saying a word, sat down.

* * *

To my surprise when we arrived, Riza was waiting for us at the gate. When I asked her why she was here she said with a smile

-"Well I came up here to check on you guys. Plus I don't trust Roy being alone with a young lady as yourself."

-"Hmph! As if, Roy said he only goes for the pretty ones." I replied.

-"Haha, he said that because he can't get the beautiful ones like you! I mean look at you! The first time I saw you I envied those piercing hazel eyes and that long, dark curly hair. Even your shortness makes you look cute. Although… you need to start dressing like a girl. If you do that, men will start lining up to you asking for your hand in marriage." Riza exclaimed with a pat on my shoulder.

-"Stop spoiling her Hawkeye! Now Meg get your stuff and go to the living room. Wait for me there for further instructions." Roy ordered.

-"Goodnight Meg!" Riza said as she left. Roy waved goodbye and went inside the house. He told me to follow him to his room. I put my stuff down next to the door and admired the bedroom. It had a king size bed and a cherry wood cabinet next to it, at the end of the room near the door a fire place. In front of the fireplace and at the end of the bed was a couch.

-"You'll be sleeping here." Roy said as he pointed to the bed next to him. I nodded, but then noticed that the couch had a pillow and two blankets.

-"I'm the guest I should be sleeping on the couch." I replied as I sat down on the couch.

-"That's exactly why your sleeping on the bed, the guests must be spoiled. Besides a few nights sleeping on the couch will do me no harm, since I sleep during the day too." Roy explained with a smile as he escorted me to the bed and tucked me in. –"Now don't let the bed bugs bite, hehehe." Roy was trying to scare me … I think. I mean I'm fifteen not a five year old that gets scared that easily.

* * *

The next day while I was studying, Hughes came in and started talking about how he wanted me to stay at his place. Roy kept saying no to Hughes… until Hughes told him he was a higher ranking officer and that Roy needs to obey orders. Mustang sighed and walked over to where I was so that he could explain the situation to me.

-"Come on Meg! It'll be fun! Alicia needs someone to play with and if you go and have Alicia occupied Gracia can do the house chores easier. Plus you'll stay at my house and won't have to come here to study, I eat at my place so when it's lunch I'll come and pick up, okay?" Hughes exclaimed in the middle of Roy's explanation, I nodded and thanked him. Mustang looked a bit disappointed that I agreed but I didn't want to burden him much like I did before. I mean he had to sleep on the couch, wake up early to make breakfast for two and make sure that I was getting ready in the morning.

* * *

Hughes was right! The time I passed at his house was lots of fun. I didn't spend as much time as I wanted studying, but other than that it was great! I helped with the chores around the house, played with Alicia, trained a bit in the front yard and was treated like family during my stay. This morning I woke up extra early just so I could get things ready for my exam. I put on a fancy shirt, some jeans and did my hair in a special way. I said my goodbyes and left with Hughes for headquarters. When I arrived there they immediately made me go into a big room filled with people to start my written exam which was pretty easy if I do say so myself. Then after lunch they gave us the results and the ones who passed had to get ready for an interview in half an hour. When it was my turn to have my interview, they escorted me to a large room that sort of look like a theatre. It had nothing in it but a desk at the end with three people sitting behind it; I noticed that on the balconies there were people with note pads glaring at me and sticking out like a sour thumb was Roy Mustang.

-"Why do you want to become a state alchemist?" A man behind the desk asked.

-"So I can be a less of a burden for the people I travel with." I lied.

-"Is that true? Because we've done some research on you Miss Meg and you don't seem to be a burden on Edward Elric." Another man asked.

-"…. I want to have revenge against the Isbalan that killed my brother. I know you have been trying to catch him but have not been successful, let me assist you." I replied with truthfulness in my voice.

-"We'll be the judge of that. Please proceed with showing us your abilities." The same man ordered. I nodded and asked for a few military men to step forward, they were hesitant at first but were ordered to do as I say.

-"Attack me. And don't hold back." I demanded, the men shrugged and charged at me. Quickly I punch the first man that came charging at me on the lip, a few drops of blood dripped down and fell on the concrete. I used the blood and the air to make a sword. With it I blocked their attacks and then I tripped two of them and clapped my hands to make the concrete handcuff them to the ground. '_Two down, three to go… time to speed up things a bit with my new technique.' _I thought as I blocked another blow and kicked the man in his stomach and elbowed his head so that he would get on his knees. That made the other two flinch, I took the opportunity to concentrate a bit before attacking. Both of them suddenly came charging at me, breaking my concentration, I quickly clapped my hands and kicked the ground. It made the ground spike up around them. I heard the people in the room gasp. '_That's right, never seen a person do alchemy with their feet have you?' _I thought as a smirk appeared on my face. I again clapped my hands and did a cartwheel towards them, which made the ground surround my hands and feet. I charged at both men and hit them with my concrete hands. They both fell to the ground unconscious. Then the guy I had hit in the stomach was getting up, so I simply kicked the ground again and made the concrete surrounding my feet hit the man on the face, yet again making him unconscious. I heard some clapping and turned around to see a man with a mustache and an eye patch, he seemed familiar. He seemed important too because everyone gasped as they noticed he was here.

-"Well, that was quiet the performance! I am very impressed; I very much want you in our military." The man exclaimed as he stepped forward to where I was.

-"Thank you very much, but may I ask to be put S.F.P?" I asked while bowing my head.

-"Haha ambitious little one aren't you? I'm afraid that section of the military doesn't exist anymore… but, seeing your abilities I think I'll have to open that section again. Congratulations! You are now a state alchemist. Oh and by the way I am Führer King Bradley." He explained. I shook his hand and thanked him three times with a big smile.

-"Führer King Bradley, may I speak?" I man on the balcony asked.

-"Yes, you may Lt. Colonel Archer." Führer King Bradley responded.

-"Sir, I don't think you are well aware of this girl's last name. "Archer commented

-"Oh? Enlighten me." Führer King Bradley responded again but with curiosity in his voice.

-"This girl's last name is Kimblee; she is Soft J. Kimblee's niece, Sir." Archer replied, everyone started murmuring. _'Crap, forgot about uncle being in prison…But I don't even like him, he was creepy. Always talking 'bout exploding things.' _I thought.

-"With all respect Sir, just because we are related doesn't mean we're the same." I said with sternness in my voice.

-"There you have it! Her last name is not an excuse for not admitting in her in the military, but it is something to take precaution with." Führer King Bradley responded as he shook my hand again. –"Until we meet again." And with that he left. Everybody followed and left the room; I glanced at the unconscious men for a while, but shrugged and left too. The moment I came out I felt some one hugging me.

-"Congrats! Looks like someone will be getting special treatment from now on." Roy exclaimed.-"The Führer gave me this before you came out… because you took too long he couldn't give you this." Roy mocked as he handed me a diploma. '_You've passed all your exams and have been chosen as one of the few to join the Amestris State Military's Alchemist Division.  
I am proud to welcome you into the Amestris State Military. You will be a welcome addition. As you may already know, all State alchemists are given a unique title, which is based on your actions and abilities. From now on, you shall be known as the "Four element" Alchemist.' _It said. I smiled and looked up at Roy.

-" Führer King Bradley told me that he didn't have certifications for the S.F.P anymore but that he will send some papers that will tell what your role is in that special alchemy division. But by now you'll just have to wear this to prove your _'Special'_. Mustang informed me as he gave a golden watch. I was filled with joy so I gave him a hug and then started admiring my watch. When I looked at Mustang he had a sort of confused, blushing look on his face.

-"Come on I want to tell the others!" I said excitedly as I grabbed his arm and started pulling Mustang to his office.

-"Hahaha calm down, Meg! You hate State Alchemists but when you became one your excitement was as if you just became a millionaire." Mustang commented, he pulled me back which made me land face to face with him.

-"Well… This just means I'm a step closer to, well, Scar." I responded looking to the ground embarrassed.

-"From what I heard about your brother Russell, I don't think he would want you to have revenge." Roy said as he patted my shoulder. -"I think he would want you to use this opportunity to help the Elric brothers… and yourself." I looked up surprised and smiled, Roy smiled back at me. We started to walk towards his office but half way there Roy started pushing and poking me on the back until we reached our destination. Breda, Fuery, Havoc, Falman and Riza congratulated as soon as I showed them my sparkly, new gold watch. I received hugs from everyone in Roy Mustang's office; they wanted me to have lunch with them too.

-"Haha I've never seen you smile like that." I heard Riza say in the midst of the crowd.

-"Oh really? Ha! Well I can't hide my joy. You know what? She reminds me of myself…"Roy responded with a chuckle. Riza laughed with him and walked towards me.

-"I have a little message from Ed." Riza said intently as she opened a piece of paper.-"Meg I hope your being successful in whatever your business in Headquarters is. I want you to know that Al and I will be headed to Central tomorrow. Soo… meet you there!" Riza read, I gave her my thanks.

-"Riza you think I can get a head start? I need to go to the fifth branch of the library after lunch." I asked hopefully.

-"Well since you're a state alchemist you can go in now." She responded with a warm smile.

* * *

**Sorry about the long wait, I've been busy during the summer :) I hope you like this chapter! Thanks for all your reviews, but may I ask for a little of critizism? I want to grow as a writer :3**


	6. Chapter 6

When I arrived to the fifth branch of the library, I paid the taxi man and started to head in. '_This is one of the reasons I envied the state alchemists, their library has the biggest collection of alchemic books.'_

-"Ma'am we are about to close. Please come back by tomorrow." The librarian said as I walked in the library.

-'' It's okay, I can close for you." I responded with kindness in my voice as I showed my gold watch. The librarian gasped and nodded as she gave the keys to the library. As I walked further and further in to the library, the more my excitement grew. I wanted to read all the books, even the encyclopedias. I had to control myself and look for Marco's book. Suddenly I heard someone enter the library, I walked over to see who it was and tell them that it was passed closing time. It was pitch black so I could only make out the figure that seemed to be of a man, but his scent seemed familiar and I felt hatred towards the smell.

-"Um, Sir we are closed. Please come back at opening time." I said trying to sound as nice as I could. The guy grunted and stepped into a ray of moonlight that came from a nearby window.

-"I have business that I have to take care of and I can't wait until morning." Scar demanded. I gasped and was about to attack but was cut off by a black like spear. Scar jumped towards the second floor of the library and started battling a little fat, bald man wearing a full black suit and a woman that had wavy black hair, a black dress and when she attacked her nails grew long and could slice practically through anything. The fat one noticed me and charged towards; I quickly clapped my hands and kicked the floor so that it could cover the man. I was successful but he started eating through the concrete as if it were normal food. I started to panic because of the inhuman beings and their abilities. Chubby man ate through the concrete and began to charge towards me again, I tried to move but my body wouldn't respond. Suddenly Scar came in front of me and punched chubby away, I was speechless and tried to move again. Still my body would not respond, chubby charged again and this time Scar used his right arm and caught his head. _'He's a goner' _I thought but when Scar's right arm glowed, chubby regenerated quickly enough to throw me and Scar into a bookshelf. I was back to my senses and stood back up but as I tried use my alchemy, the bookshelf was cut and the lady with the long fingernails appeared behind us with a candle. Scar grabbed my arm and threw me away as he made the floor explode underneath him. I clapped my hands and used the concrete to create a hand that caught him and placed him beside me. But the lady's nails extended and sliced the floor we were standing on. Quickly with my alchemy I somehow created a mattress that caught our fall, but as I glanced at Scar I noticed his left arm and forehead were bleeding. I tried remembering all that I knew about alchemic healing but was interrupted by a nail piercing me in the right shoulder. Scar would of been pierced too but he dodged it in time, '_Why was I thinking about helping Scar? See what happened for trying to return the favor? I got injured' _I thought as I stood back up again.

-"Your homunculi, aren't you?" Scar exclaimed as he wiped the sweat of his face.

-"My, there are still humans who still believe in our existence." The lady with the long black dress responded mockingly. As she came near us she dropped her candle on the floor. I noticed that on her chest there was a strange tattoo… If my memory is right, it looked like an ouroboros tattoo! Before I knew it chubby man was charging right at us again. '_Man, I need to stop zoning out!' _I thought as I looked for a way to escape. Then I glanced to see what Scar was going to so that I could get some ideas and saw that his right arm was against the wall, glowing. Soon afterwards the floor beneath us started to crack, which made the building explode because the lady had lit the books on fire by dropping her candle. Suddenly I felt an arm rap around me and put me on his shoulder. It was Scar's. I started to struggle but he shushed me and gave me stern look as he tried to search a place to hide from the Homunculi.

-"I didn't get to eat anything…" I heard someone complain.

-"I would have liked to verify Dr. Marco's research journal, but there's no need to now, is there?" A lady's voice said as what it seemed to become more and more distant. I had mixed feelings about everything right now. I very pissed because Scar had just burned down the whole freaking library along with Marco's notes, but he had helped me escape from those inhumane things. I wanted to know why the Homunculi wanted those notes too and why they had attacked us. I turned to Scar to ask him why in the heck he was here, but when I looked over he was unconscious because of the loss of blood from his left arm and right leg, which I had not seen bleeding before. I remembered hearing a rumor that there was an Ishbalan refugee camp under the city of Central. Since Scar had blown up the library, you could see the filthy sewer. _'Well, I might as well return the favor… I put him on a raft and make the sewage water go the direction of the refugee camp.' _I thought as I made a raft out of library rumble and was putting Scar in it. I clapped my hands and made a big hand out of concrete underneath the raft and lowered the raft into the sewage waters. I kicked my feet and changed direction of the water to north. '_Let's just hope those Homunculi don't find him' _I thought as I made my way to the entrance of the library… well what was left of it.

* * *

When I arrived at Hughes's house he started panicking along with Gracia, I told them I was perfectly fine and that I just needed some rest. Although I had forgotten to heal my wound so when I started walking towards my room I tumbled over because of the loss of blood. Hughes quickly put a pillow under my head and got a piece of cloth. As he warped it around my bloody and possibly infected right shoulder, Gracia brought me some water and fresh clothes for me to change in.

-"Should I call Lt. Colonel Mustang, Maes?" asked Gracia intently while grabbing the phone.

-"NO! I mean, there's no need I'm perfectly fine. I can close this wound up in a flash with my alchemy, if you give me a moment to rest and regain my energy." I exclaimed as I rose up. –"Plus I don't want him making jokes about my shoulder in the future. So there's no need to worry him, okay?" I continued trying to reason with Gracia. Both Hughes and Gracia laughed at me but respected my request. Hughes got out of the way and gave me a thumbs up in the process. As I clapped my hands together I thought of the flow of energy that was going through my body, I thought of the wound in my right shoulder and directed my alchemic energy towards the wound. I had my eyes closed so I didn't see anything but a yellow flash. Hughes gasping made me open my eyes real quick and stand up.

-"What?" I said gazing at him in surprise. He pointed at my right shoulder. The moment I laid eyes on my shoulder I gasped too. My shoulder looked as if it was never even grazed by anything, not even my clothes. I felt proud of myself for accomplishing healing alchemy for the first time and for being so successful at it too.

-"Aren't we lucky, Gracia? We know the two best alchemists in Amestris and one of them is living under our roof!" Hughes exclaimed as he went over to hug me and Gracia.-"Of course living under our roof the cutest little girl in the world!" He continued boasting about his family, I just giggled and said my goodnights as I scurried to my room to have some rest.

* * *

This morning was… as I can somehow put it… peculiar. First thing in the morning two people that work under Hughes picked me up and took me to the train station. Their names were Lt. Maria Ross and Sgt. Denny Brosh, the whole ride they both fought about their relationship to each other. Just because I asked if they were childhood friends… which I regret GREATLY. When we got to the station I thought it was going to be the end of seeing them but Armstrong took off and we have to be escorted because Scar was sighted. The only thing that I liked about this morning was that when Ed and Al came off the train, the first thing they did was run up to me and hug me. General Armstrong soon afterwards joined us with tears in his eyes; he also talked about how Edward got smacked by his mechanic because he was telling her to hurry up just because I was all 'alone' in Central. I heard a comment that Alphonse had been bragging about me to this old lady, (I think that was my favorite comment).

-"Alrighty then! Of to the fifth branch of the library and to figure out Marco's riddle." Edward exclaimed during the walk to the car.

-"Yeaah…." I responded trying not to sound anywhere near suspicious.

-"I'm sorry Elric brothers but mysteriously the Fifth branch was burned down last night. No one knows how." Lt. Ross said as we got into the car.

-"I want to see that with my own eyes." Edward demanded. She shrugged her shoulders and drove on.

* * *

For hours we searched for solutions. When we got to the Fifth branch Ed tried transmutating the books back to their original state but the wind blew the ashes away. We tried going to the archives to see if anything was saved, but that errand was in vain. Also we tried asking the librarians if they had saved a copy but that was in vain, like everything we tried to do.

-"Brother, remember that the last time we went to the Fifth branch there was three librarians? Let's go back inside too ask about her." Al suggested. Which his suggestion was the most helpful because when we went to visit the bookworm, she told us she had photographic memory. And that she could re-write Marco's book.

-"Sorry but we didn't introduce ourselves." Edward said with a bit of embarrassment, before we left. –"I'm Edward Elric and this is my brother Alphonse Elric." He continued as he pointed to Al. –"Also the girl that's next to him is called Megan, Meg for short. She accompanies us in our travels." Now he was pointing at me.

-"Are you **THE** Meg?" Sheska exclaimed. We all had a confused face and just starred at her. She quickly got a newspaper from her coffee table and showed us the headline. It had a picture of me and the newspaper stated. '_S.F.P branch re-opened! First member is a young female alchemist.' _

-"See? That's Megan Kimblee, oh my gosh. It's an honor to meet you!" Sheska exclaimed a she ran up to me to shake my hand. I smiled faintly and tried not to look at Ed's expression, I knew he was going to be disappointed.

-"Um… when do you think you'll get the book ready?" I asked nervously.

-"In about two hours, so come back after lunch!" Sheska replied excitedly still shaking my hand.

-"Come let's go have some lunch." Lt. Ross suggested.

* * *

-"Why are we headed to central headquarters? Alphonse asked when he noticed we were going the wrong direction.

-"The Lt. Colonel called us and made a request that we bring Meg. He said she had some paper work waiting for her." Sgt. Brosh responded as he was pulling over. –"Everyone out." He ordered. We all walked inside without saying a word. Al and Edward hadn't said a word to me after finding out I had become a state alchemist, they didn't seem mad or happy. When we reached Hughes's office his secretary told us that he went down to Lt. Colonel Mustang's office. '_Oh great, if Ed isn't in a bad mood already seeing Roy is going to tick him off." _I thought as we reached Roy's office.

-"Ed! Al! How was your trip? Ooh guess who stayed at my house when you guys were gone? MEG! And Alicia adooores her, especially since she played with her aaall the time." Hughes exclaimed as the Elric brothers entered the room.

-"Now there's no need to over exaggerate, she spent time with me too. I think that was what kept her from missing you guys." Roy boasted as he tried to hug me but I tripped him in the process.

-"Cut the crap, I'm here for my papers and that's it." I stated sternly while glaring at Mustang as he stood up. Roy signaled Riza over with some papers at hand, as she gave them to me. I sensed Edward sigh.

-"So what do you think about your beloved Meg becoming a state alchemist and a special one at that?" Roy mocked in Edward's face. I sighed and was ready to see Ed explode just like he explodes when someone calls him short even though it's true. I flipped through the pages and noticed some of them were missing.

-"I think it'll help us, I am quite hurt that she didn't tell us about her plans. But maybe it was for the best to keep it a secret for a while. Now colonel pervert, you better have not done anything that'll make me harm your useless butt." Edward warned, pushing him away. Mustang just scoffed and smirk at him.

-"I don't know if this is a mistake, but some of the pages to the form are missing." I said showing the page numbers. Roy chuckled and turned to face me.

-"Why Hawkeye must have misplaced them, I think she left them at a café. Hmmm I think you will need to accompany me for the missing papers. I am sooo sorry for the inconvenience." Roy teased with one of the biggest smirk on his face.

-"That's fine but you're paying, we were going to have lunch after this anyways." Edward replied before I could say anything. Roy said nothing and motioned us to follow him, suddenly I felt someone grab my arm and start running off with me. Then I heard Ed screaming his head off, Hughes cracking up and Alphonse yelling at me to be careful. That's when I noticed Roy was making off with me and shoving into his car. I glanced at him with surprise and saw that he had an expression of a happy little child sucking on a huge lollipop. He seemed quite satisfied with his successful kidnap; I was kind of in awe because of this choice of action.

* * *

-"You know you could have just asked me out to lunch. Or is this how normal men ask girls out on dates?" I mocked as we sat down. I looked at Roy with a disapproving face, and he just chuckled.

-"Have you seriously never gone on a date before?" Roy asked with an expression of _'Looks like I hit the jackpot'. _I sighed and nodded trying not to look at him because of my embarrassment.

-"Can I just get my papers and leave?" I wanted to leave as soon as possible.

-"I am afraid that you'll need me to help you fill that out. Plus I won't give them until you finish the ones at hand." He explained showing me the other papers as bait. I scoffed but then just shrugged. '_The guy is an idiot but since I'm already here it wouldn't hurt to eat something while I work…Plus he went through all this trouble just to go out on a date with me.' _I thought as I ordered my meal. I took out the papers and we started discussing what information I should write in the forms. We were almost done and the food hadn't arrived yet.

-"Oh my, this is really cute! An older brother helping his little sister with her homework as he takes her out to have lunch." The waitress said as she put Mustang's food on the table. The moment she did, Mustang touched her hand and gave her warm smile. Of course the waitress started blushing. I scoffed and kept on writing. '_Really? Because I look NOTHING like him, I have brown curly hair with freakin' hazel eyes.' _I thought with much annoyance.

-"Hey Meg, what are you writing." Roy asked a bit panicked thinking I made a mistake.

-"Hmm? Oh nothing, how do you spell Elric? I'm putting Ed as my chosen superior; he'll be taking care of me and supervising me." I responded without lifting up my face.

-"Now, now you can't put Ed's name as an option. It has to be a high ranking official, higher than a Sgt." Roy explained.

-"Oh then in that case I'll put in Hughes." I replied with a smile, he choked on his food and then tried to put on a smile.

-"I was thinking someone more experienced like—

-"Yeah, yeah I get it. You want to be the person that gets to command me." I said flatly with a bit of annoyance in my voice. As I started writing his name he seemed quite satisfied. '_Maybe that's why he kidnapped me, just so he could become my presiding officer.'_ I thought, not noticing his face near mine. I looked up to give him the papers but I flinched backwards and fell off the chair. I thought Roy was going to start cracking up but instead he helped me, apologized and sat back down with a warm smile. I stared at him with a blushing face but then stopped. I remembered how he flirted with the waitress and came to the conclusion he was flirting with me too. Just another trophy for him, that's most girls are to him.

-"What's the glare for? I just apologized." Roy asked, confused.

-"I'm not a naïve child, I know you're a player and don't think of women are of much worth." I responded flatly but then regretted my rudeness.

-"That may be true, but I am also a gentleman. I just like to see women smile and have good time." Roy said warmly, with truthness in his voice. I scoffed and handed the papers. He flipped through them and then showed me the papers that he had in his position. I noticed that they were already filled out. I skimmed through them and found no mistake in the information. I muttered thanks and started eating.

-"Hey, relax. Every time you're with the Elric brothers something bad or violent happens, one of the reasons I brought you here was to try to have you relax and have a good time. Please cheer up." Mustang said lifting my chin up and smiling warmly at me. I blushing, I smiled back and nodded.

-"Fine, but it may take time to see me laughing. Most people won't ever see me laugh, and I don't mean a giggle or a chuckle. I mean hard core laughing." With a smirk, I challenged him.

-"Challenge accepted." Roy seemed quite pumped up.

* * *

Time flew by; I didn't even notice that it was almost around sunset time. I told Roy that we better hurry or both of us were going to be plundered by Ed. And in a way I was right. The moment we arrive to the library room that Edward and Al were occupying, Edward flung himself towards Roy trying to start a fight.

-"First you kidnap her, and then you return her late at night! I warned you!" He was in total enraged mode. -"You're a player and players do not get near Meg!" He warned.

-"Hmm I thought you took the role of being her older brother not an over protective father." Mustang mocked as he pushed Ed away. I just ignored the fight and walked towards Al who was sitting near a desk.

-"So how was it?" Al whispered cautiously.

-"Eh, sort of boring. It was mostly just doing paper work, nothing more." I lied; I didn't want him to know that I was having a good time with Roy.-"Anyways whatcha got?" I asked as I flipped through some pages seeing some numbers and notes.

-"We found some things that didn't make any sense, take a look." He showed me a notepad with a bunch of sentences that didn't make sense. I looked at them very intently and started circling what seem to be key words. '_open, neck, with, lace, circle, shown here, connecting, dots.' _I gasped and put the words in a sentence. '_Open necklace with circle shown here, connecting dots.' _

-"Dots! Did you see anything about dots or any dots in the book?" I exclaimed franticly searching the book's pages. Al clamed me down and showed me that they circled every word that had to do with dots or circles. Quickly I spread out the pages and started to connect the dots, it soon formed a small transmutation circle.

-"Edward! Leave Mustang alone and get over here." I demanded. He whistled at the sight of the unusual transmutation circle.

-"Let's see what happens, could you do the honors Meg?" Ed asked with a wink. I nodded excitedly and put my necklace on the table. A flash of light followed from my hands clapping together, and then soon afterwards all that was left was my necklace, open. Alphonse grabbed the necklace and examined it. He noticed that engraved inside the necklace were some numbers.

-"I think these numbers represent the number of page, then paragraph and last the sentence." Alphonse suggested while he wrote in the numbers down in triplets.

-"Let's each one of us take a couple and then put it all together to see what it forms." Ed ordered handing out pages. I heard the door close and assumed that Lt. Ross, Sgt. Brosh and Mustang left so that we could concentrate. I was a bit mad at myself because Roy had won the challenge. I sighed and kept on working.

* * *

_It was the stone, as red as blood, which promised to bring happiness to all by turning despair into joy. Bring victory to battle, and life back to the dead. In reverence, people refer to it as the philosopher's stone._

-"How can this be possible?" Edward exclaimed in grief hiding his face in is hands.

-"Brother-

-"This is the answer we finally arrive at, after searching for it so long… How can people be the main ingredient to the philosopher stone?" Edward jumped up from his chair. The moment that we all found out, we were speechless, dumb folded. I had heard the door open a bit when Edward had exclaimed the founding. The smell of food and Lt. Ross had entered and left the room in a blink of an eye.

* * *

The shuffling of papers woke me up. Since our discovery we've done nothing but wallow in our depression. I fell asleep on the bed of our room trying to think of some mistake we made in the translation. But nothing could point to our mistake, I took a glance at my necklace and then at Ed. He was looking at the revolving fan on the semi- putrid ceiling, just depressed as me, probably thinking of another solution. Al was the only positive one, again another quality I wish I could show more. He was still looking over and over again at Marco's notes, looking for another solution.

-"I think we should just quit Al, sorry Meg but there's no point in pursuing this if we have to use human lives. Either way I don't see what's' the point of you accompanying us anymore, I mean with Russell dead and all. You have a perfect body after all; I think Roy would make a nice boyfri-

-"No! Stop your non-sense; you're not like this Edward Elric! At all! You look for different solutions, even if it looks impossible to do. You never give up. Tell me Edward, do you want Alphonse Elric to stay in that metal body? Forever? It's horrid, he can't taste, smell, feel. He'll live on forever too, he'll see you die. All his friends die. Is that what you want for your brother?" I was furious; I wasn't going to stand anymore stupidity coming out of that fool's mouth. I didn't realize I was yelling at him. Ed's face looked really surprised and at the door Lt. Ross and Sgt. Brosh had a similar expression. But the boy didn't get the message and continued to wallow in his sadness.

-"I knew it was rude but I couldn't help but listening to your recent conversation. I know that to create a philosopher's stone you need a lot of human lives." Lt Ross said as she organized the papers with Al.

-"You don't want to acknowledge that everything you've gone so far might be for nothing right?" She continued looking at Edward straight in the eye. Ed started realizing how stupid he had sounded. He covered his face with his metal arm. –"Why not try verifying?" she asked as she handed him the papers she had gathered. I walked towards Ed and Al to join them.

-"Your right Meg! We've this far! How can we end this halfway? Thanks for the push Lt." Edward thanked as he looked for some answers. I looked at Alphonse and smiled he nodded and it seemed like his eyes were smiling at me, since his metal face can't show expressions sometimes I catch them in his eyes.

-"The genuine truth behind truths…. That's it! I need a map." Edward demanded. Quickly the Sgt. put a map of Central city on the table. We all started discussing about where Dr. Marco could have done his research. We all came to the conclusion that he had his very own alchemic lab. Then after some searching we found that lab 5 was the only one next to a resource for the stone. It was next to the 2nd prison of Central. The fifth lab was closed and off limits.

-"A perfect match!" Al, Ed and I exclaimed at the same time. We all chuckled then smirked.

-"I'll go down stairs and contact Major Armstrong for permission to investigate the fifth laboratory." Lt Ross suggested as she headed for the door.

-"Can you call Hughes too? Tell him that Meg will be spending the night with the Elric brothers." I asked, she nodded and both of our 'bodyguards' left the room. Quickly I went and shut the door carefully. I clapped my hands and started making the sheets on the bed longer. Then I tied them to the bed stand and threw the rest out the window.

-"I think that hold even Al's weight, come on. Before they come back." I ordered as I signaled them over to the window.

-"Haha you were quite mad at me a few minutes ago, weren't you? I mean you called us by our full names." Edward mocked as we went down the sheet like ladder. I just shrugged my shoulders and told him to keep on going.

-"Well you did say that you were willing to accept Roy. And that's what ticked me off the most." I was in all sincere, him to say that was like seeing a half monkey and human. Which since he did somehow say it, I'm afraid it will come true.

-"Meg, are you in anyway related to the Crimson Alchemist?" Al asked when I arrived on to the ground.

-"Heh, yeah. He's my uncle; I never really interacted with him. Especially since he went to Ishbal and got sent to prison soon afterwards he returned. He was always soo creepy, he gave me nightmares. " I replied in full honesty.

-"Well, let's hope he isn't in the 2nd prison." Edward said as he signaled me to the gate.

-"So where are we sneaking off to?" Alphonse asked innocently.

-"We are going to discover the secrets of the fifth laboratory." Edward and I replied with pride.


	7. Chapter 7

The moment we arrived I noticed the place was heavily fortified. The gate said _keep out_; there were tripwire alarms beyond the front gate, and barbed wire along the fence.

-"For a place that is abandoned, there sure is a whole lot a security." Edward commented as he inspected the place. –"This is getting more and more suspicious every minute." He continued.

-"There's always the back." I suggested as I signaled them over to where I was. We ran to the back just to find more barbed wires. Before I could suggest anything else, Ed was being thrown by Alphonse over the fence. He landed on the barbed wires with his right arm and left leg, so that no harm would come to his non-artificial limbs. At times like these we really need Edward's auto mail. He slowly lowered the barbed wire so that Al could hang on to it.

-"Get on my back, Meg." Alphonse ordered, I quickly put my arms around his metal body and grabbed on tightly. He started climbing over the wall and when we landed he didn't give me time to get off his back. He had started to run after Ed. And to our deception the door was locked up tight, as everything at the fifth lab.

-"Brother over there," Al signaled to an air vent that was big enough for me and Ed to climb in. Al gave us a boost since it was high on the wall.

-"Looks like it goes all the way inside, Al and Meg wait here until I get back." Edward ordered as he climbed in.

-"No Ed, I'm coming with you. I'm more worried about you than Alphonse; He can handle himself better than you." I said flat out while I climbed in after him. He chuckled and kept crawling through the vent, he was a bit slow. I grew restless and pushed him, a mistake from my part. He fell right into a trap that was on a tile. A bunch of arrows were shot from the ground, then I jumped trying to hit a non-trap tile but was unlucky. The wall opened up and a huge knife came and sliced the floor next to me and Ed. Again we both stepped on trap tiles, needles came flying and the floor opened under us. Edward almost fell in, but I held on to his hand and saved him. To my surprise he started chuckling.

-"For them to go this far, they must really want no one getting anywhere close." He commented as I pulled him up. But he wasn't careful enough and placed his hand on another trap tile, but this time it didn't go off immediately. The floor had started to shake underneath us and a rumbling noise approached rapidly. When we both looked back we noticed a hug boulder coming our way and fast. _'There's no way we could evade this huge thing!' _I thought as I ran for it. Suddenly I saw Ed lay on the floor near the wall and try squish in the gap of the boulder and the wall. Quickly I copied and held my breath hoping I also was small enough for the gap.

-"I-It really is a good thing I'm so small…Argh! This is a pain!" Edward exclaimed as he stood up and used his alchemy to destroy the floor and find a way in. I chuckled but then somewhat sensed that a seal had been broken; it was like a chill went up my spine.

-"I'll go open the door for Al, okay? Are you going to explore a bit?" I suggested as I stood up.

-"Yeah I'll explore a bit, go and get Al." He responded as he walked off.

-"Be careful and don't do anything stupid." I warned but he just waved at me as if saying '_yeah, yeah whatever.' _But as he waved I caught a weird noise coming from his mechanical arm, it was as if a bolt was missing. I decided to ignore it and find the door that let outside. I scurried down the hall trying not to activate anymore traps along the way. Then as I found the door I heard a loud _CLANK. _Quickly I tried using my alchemy to open the door, but it was no use. The door had too many layers of metal to go through. I traced my footsteps so that I could follow the vent where Ed and I had first come from. As I focused, I heard two people talking. One said something about being prisoner number 66 and that he got 'executed', but in reality he got turned into a heap of metal. I was getting anxious and wanted to see what was out there so on the nearest wall I used my alchemy and made a tunnel. The moment I came out I saw a metal guy that had rags on, white long hair and kind of a skull like mask for a face. He was waving around a butcher knife in an intense way, like ticked off people often do.

-"Hold still so you can get cut up!" The …metal butcher man yelled as he charged towards Alphonse. Then I noticed he had a dagger in the other hand. Al dodged all of his attacks as if it was nothing .But he tripped on a rock which gave the metal butcher an opening, but it was futile since when he stabbed Al's elbow, Al broke it in an instance and with his other hand pushed metal butcher on his face. He came stumbling over where I was, so I used my alchemy to make him role more, it was a mistake since his head came off. I gasped for a moment and then realized he was just like Al.

-"Now you've gone and done it, my head fell off!" He exclaimed as he picked it up.

-"Your body!" Al said in astonishment.

-"Yeah. Thanks to some circumstances that I've told you 'bout I wound up like this….You can't tell who I used to be, can you?" Al shook his head in response. -"You can't tell me you've forgotten! You're the reason I got caught and condemned a criminal. Hmm well when I used to be all flesh and bones people used to call me the serial killer, Barry the Chopper." He sounded all proud when he announced it. This time it was Al who gasped, I think they told me a story about one of their first harsh adventures, this was when Winry had come to visit at Central right after Edward had gotten his certification. Around sunset she had gone missing and they went to find her, long story short they found her at a butcher shop, Ed almost died, Barry creeped them out and got sent to prison to die. That's when Ed had started hating Mustang cause he had shown no sympathy to kids. He told them _-" You're in the military now, get a hold of yourself and stop crying," _Harsh words for 12 year olds.  
-"Now I've come back from the depths of pure darkness to take revenge on you!" I heard Barry exclaim, he started chuckling to himself which later on turned into a bigger laugh.  
-"You don't say..." Al mumbled, both me and Barry were surprised from this reaction.  
-"Don't '_You don't say' _**ME!** People do get surprised when a dead criminal comes back to have revenge on you. And what's more! When a suit of armor is empty inside they start going like _GYAAAAAH_! or _WAAAH!_ or maybe even manage to say _WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH YOUR BODY?! _or, or like-" Al removed his head and put it back on.  
-"AAAARGH! HOooly... That's awful, you just hurt my feelings. Are you a fellow executed prisoner too?" Barry inquired seeing that he wasn't the only abnormal one in this place.  
-"I'm no criminal!" Al explained with anger in his voice, I decided to make an appearance by getting out of the tunnel. -"Even so, now I know you're like me so I know your weakness. I just have to destroy your blood seal!" He continued.  
-"Yeah but you don't know where it is!" Barry exclaimed proudly.  
-"And you don't either..."  
-"Aaaargh! fine, I'll just have to chop ya all up to break your blood seal."" Barry was now throwing a hissy fit. HE charged but as always Al was better than him and sent him flying. This went on for quite some while; I decided to not get out of the tunnel just yet.  
-"Can we call it a tie? I'm worried about Meg and brother..." Al said worryingly, I gasped at the realization that all this time Ed had been alone.  
-"You mean those two pipsqueak alchemists?" Barry answered  
-"Brother gets angry if you mention his height."  
-"Ah I see... Hmm hehehehehEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE ! So it was your brother that gave you that armored form?!" Barry was smirking.  
-"That's right; he risked his life to transmute me." Al responded pridefully.  
-"Ohoho~ that's rich!" Barry started chuckling again.  
-"What's so funny?!" Al was all outraged  
-"Oh how rude, how rude. Brotherly love is just soo beautiful... Eheh even if it's false affection."  
-"...False?"  
-"That's right! False love. Hmmm what a perfectly naive fellow you are. Suppose you're an imitation, suppose your personality and memories were implanted as it suited your brother. What then? As a spirit how can you prove who you are? Everyone around you could be deceiving you, all your loved ones." Barry responded.  
-"I-I-  
-"That's not true! He's a person, He's Alphonse Elric!" I yelled. Lies! It was all lies just to confuse Al. But when I took a glance at him; he seemed deep in thought, wondering if this was all true. I was getting angry so I tackled Barry, but didn't notice I had tackled Barry AND Alphonse to the wall. I quickly got off both of them, and when I did I heard a _thump_. I looked towards the wall where I had heard the _thump_, and saw a figure of a man. The smell that the man was omitting made me feel angry but somewhat relieved….

-"I'm so pleased, more and more victims appear!" Barry exclaimed as he charged towards the man, but as he was about to swing his butcher knife towards him. Scar quickly fended the attack by restraining Barry's wrist. Wait! That's why I know him! It's

-"SCAR!" I yelled in astonishment.

-"What?! No fair! You have friends all around you protecting you!" Barry whined with his right wrist still restrained.

-"Friends? ..." Scar said but his thought was soon interrupted by Barry's punch, Scar dodged it and destroyed Barry's entire right arm. Barry in full panic ran towards a wall and started chuckling and before we knew it the whole place started to explode. I tried to look for cover as soon as possible but I felt someone pull me under them. I saw Scar's hand and without thinking I pulled him in too. When the explosions had ceased I looked up at Alphonse with gratitude for becoming our shield, I took a glance at Scar who was waking up and he seemed quite surprised to see me and Al trying to protect him. I was about to say something but was interrupted by Barry's laughter.

-"Well then! It's time for me to say, bye-bye!" He exclaimed as he scurried away into the ruble.

-"Hey! Get back here!" I yelled but he kept laughing and yelled back to come and follow him inside. I was ready to go running in when I felt something squirming underneath my stomach. I flinch backwards and landed on top of Al, both of our faces in close range.

-"I'm sooo sorry!" I apologized feeling my face get redder. Al apologized too, then I apologized back, we could've gone for hours like this but Scar got annoyed and stood up in between us.

-"Watch where you want people to land young lady." He advised as he started to head into the ruble. About to complain but I restrained myself and asked

-"Where are you going?"

-"If you two are here, then Fullmetal must be near." Scar replied as he kept walking farther in. '_Crap! I totally forgot about Ed!'_ I thought in full panic mode. Al and I looked at each other and nodded. We both ran after Scar hoping we could find Ed alright.

* * *

The air felt tense the whole walk everybody felt awkward, every time I would glance at Scar he would glance back and kind of look into my soul briefly before I would turn away. But I was mad at myself for not feeling angry at Scar, even though he had helped me before, it didn't mean I had forgiven him for killing Russell. But somehow in my heart I didn't feel as resentful as I thought I would always be towards him. It was like as if I knew he felt sorry for killing Russell.

-"Stop being such a naïve child and face the facts Meg!" I thought out loud.

-"That's what I think too." Scar commented back with sarcasm in his voice.

-"I wasn't talking to you, jerk fa-

-"Why won't you leave brother alone?" Alphonse butted in trying to stop a fight, Scar seemed fine with it and while we walked they discussed how it was Scar's calling from Ishbala to kill all state alchemists and the tattoo from his arm was a another form of telling him he had to fullfil his duty. Obviously he didn't know I was a state military dog too since he hadn't tried to kill me yet. Then he said Ed was a bigger threat since he wanted the philosopher stone.

-"Ed doesn't want the philosopher stone for battle purposes, it's so that Alphonse here can get his full body back. Get your facts straight dumb butt." I explained as I punched Scar's right arm. He glared at me so I backed off a little.

-'You don't know the horrors of the stone." Scar replied with anger in his voice.

-"Yes we do, legend says that those who come near it perish because of its power and that's how Ishbal lost soo many people." I replied,trying to right a wrong.

-"Ishbal didn't perish, it was destroyed!" Scar exclaimed as he grasped his right arm. He was shaking in anger looking at his arm. I was in awe, didn't know what to do. But Al's respond to Scar's reaction was to go and comfort him. He walked up to him and placed his hand on Scar's right arm, called his name. Scar was still mad but he loosened up and listened to Alphonse.

-"I know that the philosopher's stone is made of other's people's lives. We came here to see if there's another way to make the stone. Because we're against using other people's lives for our purposes. If there's no other way then-

-"My, my. There sure are a lot of intruders today… May I ask who you are?" I looked up and saw the two homunculus that attacked Scar and me at the library. The lady and her fat friend.

-"You…! Why are you making that face?" Scar asked intently at the lady. Her expression turned into a furious one. -"Did my brother succeed?" He continued.

-"What do you mean?" the air in the room started to get tenser by the minute. The lady was acting, she knew what Scar meant.

-"Can I eat them?" The fat one asked as he moved forward. The lady's expression returned to her usual smirk.

-"The metal one would make you have indigestion." She responded looking at Al. I flinched and glared at her.

-"Nuh-uh, I'll be ok." Fatty started getting closer to Alphonse. I quickly stood next to him and put my arm in front of him.

-"Get away homunculi." I warned.

-"Wait! But homunculi don't exist!" Alphonse exclaimed in astonishment. The lady opened her hand and when she did, her nails extended. I lunged myself at the lady while clapping my hands to make her fall in a pit. It took her by surprise and tried to jump upward but was stopped by me kicking her in the stomach. It sent her flying towards Scar, I checked to see how Al was doing. Fatty had head butted Alphonse into the wall, Scar stood there in awe. But he didn't notice that the lady had gotten up behind him and was rushing towards him with her nails pointing towards him.

-"Scar!" I yelled, warning him.

-"Too slow." She said as she cut his clothes. I didn't know who to help so I quickly clapped my hands together and made two walls. With them I pushed both the homunculi away from the ones who they were attacking. But fatty got out soon enough and Scar went after him. He sent fatty flying but when he landed he made a hole on the floor, making a big cloud of dust. I was looking for the lady when I looked back at Scar, fatty was throwing punches a him but luckily Scar was way faster than him and dodged each one of them. I was starting to think we could win, then I saw nails come in my direction; I grabbed the nails and with alchemy tried to break them. I succeed but since they are homunculi they regenerate, I jumped to the side and saw Scar being head butted into the wall. I ran towards Scar and saw him fall into a hole. Fatty walked to the hole but suddenly his steps stopped cold.

-"I-I hate that place!" He exclaimed in terror while trembling. He was staring into the hole with remarkable fear. I decided to hide behind a pillar and wait to see what fatty would do. Fatty gave up waiting for Scar and left, I could smell Scar which meant he was somewhat close by. Fatty's scent was getting duller so I followed him to see how Al was doing.

-"Lust where's metal boy?" Fatty asked, Lust? That's a feeling not a name… unless-

-"Right here and he's not going anywhere … Where's the scarred man and the girl? I told you not to lose them Gluttony." Lust said sternly, '_I see now because they are homunculi they have names of human feelings'_.

-"He fell to a nasty place." Gluttony responded. Lust shrugged her shoulders.

-"No matter, but Greed may be coming to interfere. We need to speed things up with the Fullmetal boy." She said as she was in a thoughtful trance. I look around to see if I could find Alphonse, as I was looking I had to hold my tongue and put my hands over my mouth covering my gasp. Alphonse was in pieces and Lust sitting on him as it were nothing. She got up and started pushing Al towards a hallway, I decided to follow. As I followed them I started worrying about Ed, I started wondering if he really was ok. Then I suddenly caught the smell of someone very familiar, it was a scent I hadn't smelled a long time ago. I felt like I should follow it. At first I resented the idea but somewhere in my gut I wanted to go see the person who was emitting the smell. I wanted to see if that person was really alive after all these years. I was trying to remember whose scent that was as I ran towards it, I felt guilty about leave Alphonse in those dirty homunculi's hands, about leaving Ed and Scar not knowing if they were alright. As I kept running I picked up another two scents, it was Edward's scent and someone else's. So I ran even faster, but hid behind a corner wall when I saw a monster walking next to Ed. He literally looked like a man fused with a bear and a rabbit.

-"They've been made into storage tanks, to supply the Philosopher's stones beneath us." The monster said, his voice was one of a gentle, soft man. He spoke in a whisper, Ed looked inside a room. He inspected it and said

-"Seems legit, I can use it." And walked away from the room, the moment he opened it I caught the scent from the person I was looking for. I waited for Edward and the monster to leave, I thought of following Ed but it looked like he had everything under control even though he was injured on the right side of his body. '_I'll try to heal him later.'_ I thought as I opened the room that Ed had just been into. The first thing I saw was a bald man looking at some prisoners inside a box, they all had terrified written on their faces. The bald man looked at them with spite.

-"You humans… really, a hundred years can go by and you haven't changed one bit." The bald man had Basques Grand voice… And when he turned around he looked just like the Iron Blood alchemist. I gasped as he looked at me with concern, he sighed and before I knew it he threw me in with the prisoners. One of them caught me and when I looked into his eyes I could see pity in them. When I stood up I saw that we were now trapped inside a container, and that the Brigadier General's scent was gone.

-"What's with that old geezer?" One of the prisoners demanded. I glanced around and saw that each one of them had hand cuffs on. _'That couldn't have been Basques Grand; Scar killed him a few weeks ago.' _I thought, trying to make sense in all this.

-"Is he really a military dog?" Another asked, I suddenly smelled the scent for the one who I was looking for. When I turned to see where the scent was the strongest as a chuckled was heard.

-"Do you still think that person is his Excellency, Basques Grand? How cuute! Hehehe His Excellency isn't that great of a bigwig." A man sitting on the floor with a big smirk said…. I know that voice. Don't tell me it's-

-"Uncle Kimblee?! Is that you?! I left Alphonse and Edward just to find you?! Oh I can't believe myself; I'm turning into a big softy! UGH!" I exclaimed as I banged my head into the wall in despair.

-"Well if it isn't my _favorite_ niece! Hehehehe wouldn't have expected to see **you** here. You've always been my favorite because you aren't afraid to express your feelings like everybody else. I did quite miss you, darling." He responded chuckling and mocking with his usual smirk. A chill went up my spine when I heard him say darling, another thing I hated: him calling me pet names.

-"Yeah everybody's afraid to cause you might've blown them up." I scoffed, glaring at him.

-"Aww, won't you give your uncle a hug?" He mocked as he tried to hug me but I resisted and went to the farthest corner of the container. And as usual he chuckled and sat back down.

* * *

The prisoners were starting to get restless and started shouting.

-"Help!" was heard in the room.

-"Is there anyone out there?!" Another one exclaimed.

-"Hey! We're here!" fear was spreading quickly around the container.

-"Stifle it, will you?" Kimblee said still sitting, looking down.

-"What are you so relaxed for? Not even you the comrade-killer, once known as the Crimson Alchemist, can do anything about this, can you?" A prisoner mocked looking down at him. I walked towards them to see of Kimblee was about to explode, but to my surprise he was smirking and looking at him as if he was asking for a challenge.

-"Do you know… know why I'm called the comrade-killer?" He asked as he stood up, the prisoner looked at him defiantly.

-"Y-You blew up your comrades all up, right? With bombs?" He responded with a little of fear in his voice.

-"Ha! Bombs? I have no need for such cheap things." His smirk became bigger; he showed his hands to the prisoner. I had a bad feeling about this and walked closer. –"The human body is mostly composed of water, but there is a certain quantity of metallic atoms included within." He explained, Kimblee put his hands on the prisoner's chest and started pushing him slowly towards the wall, I walked quicker and quicker fearing he was going to do something I'd regret not stopping.

-"By making use of that composition, and a small amount of organic compounds, I can easily transmute explosive materials." The prisoner's face started looking as if he was in pain while Kimblee kept talking and pushing him. I started to get closer trying to stop Kimblee. –"And, surrounded by sooo much red water…" His face looked worse and worse and Kimblee's expression became more and more satisfied.

-"Uncle, Uncle what are you doing?" I asked calmly trying to catch his attention.

-"My power… becomes…" He said as he pushed the prisoner against the wall, and it started to disappear.

-"Please, Uncle Kimblee. Stop this nonsense… Kimblee? Kimblee?!" I exclaimed as the whole wall had disappeared and there was a huge flash, I quickly lunged myself towards them trying to stop the worst, but was too late.

BOOM!

* * *

-"Cough, cough." I looked up and saw the prisoners getting up from the explosion and groaning. I glanced and saw beside me Uncle Kimblee still with a smirk on his face, even though he was coughing too. I helped him up and looked around to see where we were.

-"Why are these people here? Researchers left behind like you?" I heard Ed inquired.

-"What those people are, are prisoners." The monster responded, Kimblee kept coughing. _'Really, if you're going to blow up the whole freaking room up, at least make sure you're out of harm's way.' _I thought as I moved him away from the dust and sat him down in the corner.

-"Seriously Uncle if you're in _that _bad of a shape don't do stupid things like this." I scolded as I started walking towards the other prisoners and examined the place.

-"Hehe that's another reason your my favorite, no matter how much you hate me, you still care for me and show me a little bit of affection." I heard Kimblee say faintly, I only waved at him as if saying '_yeah, yeah I know'._

-"Why are they here?! If had transmuted without knowing they were here!..." Ed exclaimed furiously but the monster only chuckled. And that chuckled ascended to a laugh. Edward ignored him and turned around to see how he could help. He started franticly to ask how they got here and suddenly stopped. Basques Grand walked into the room and started talking crap about how he was ordered to bring them here. Ed wasn't about to take that crap so he charged towards him and tried to punch the fake baldy. But on that moment, in a flash the baldy turned into a cross-dressing man. Or maybe he was a girl… He/ she chuckled and muttered how that was a close one. Ed was furious and said that he had seen the General die right in front of his eyes, and proceeded to ask who this person was. He didn't answer but instead he mocked Ed. Of course Edward tried to fight him, but the man kept dodging all of his attacks.

-"Shut up with the pipsqueak stuff!" Ed yelled as he tried to punch him again. Suddenly it hit me; this guy is a homunculus too. The Edward tried to transmutate but his metal arm couldn't move. The homunculus chuckled and started attacking Ed mercifully.

-"Good grief you don't know your place do you? Don't even know who you are fighting, huh?" He mocked when he kicked Ed to the ground.

-"Hey cross dresser! Leave him alone, and stop trying to pick a fight with a crippled." I yelled as I stepped near him. Ed gasped and got much more furious realizing he could've transmutated me too. But the homunculus kicked him again, he was about to kick him again but I intercepted it and pushed him away from him. Glancing at Ed, I realized that he was in a lot of pain.

-"Grrr, we've only kept you alive because we need you alive." Cross dresser explained in a condescending tone. He was getting madder and madder by the minute, I glared at him. That ticked him of and charged towards us.

-"Envy! This is all your fault for not being more careful." Ed and I looked up and saw Lust standing there. -"Let's make things easier and continue the transmutation, shall we? After all we still have the ingredients." She continued. Ed looked at them realizing that this was the plan from the start. I looked at Uncle Kimblee to see if he was still ok, which he was. But the prisoners had started running and panicking, trying to find the exit. And when they did Gluttony entered carrying Al, well… half of Al. I clenched my fists and helped Ed to his feet.

-"You aren't going to say no to us, are you?" She asked mockingly. I tried to think of ways to escape and still be alive by doing so. I involuntarily started walking towards Al, but before I knew it Envy had me in a head lock, chuckling at me. Ed was in total despair, looking at us being in their custody.

-"Brother... These people... they're homunculi." Al said faintly, I got furious from seeing Alphonse so beat up and weak. I head butted Envy and tried to run towards Al but before I could, Envy tackled me and hit my vital nervous system points, leaving me, on the floor not able to move.

-"Th-They c-couldn't be-e." Ed was already trembling at the mere thought of these immortal 'humans'.

-"A-Al's right E-Ed…" I said faintly, I literally could not move a muscle. Envy looked at me and chuckled at my pain.

-"Edward, they're perfectly created humans. And they promised that they'll reveal their secrets to me if I am willing to help. That way I can bring Nina back to life!" The chimera/ monster exclaimed as he walked towards the homunculi and Alphonse. He was carrying a girl just like him, but less monster/ chimera like.

-"What's the p-point?! You don't have her soul!" Ed complained. The chimera looked at him with a smirk and pointed at his head.

-"Oh, but I do. Right here, the memories I have of her. I'll just transfer them to her and she'll never know she's fake!" He responded. I couldn't keep up with the conversation, my whole limbs felt numb, my brain felt numb. I just wanted to go to sleep. Nothing else mattered, not even Uncle Kimblee or Ed or poor Alphonse….

-"We can't perform alchemy but we still need the stone so that we can become human." I heard Lust explain. They kept explaining how they were born, supposedly when a human transmutation goes wrong a homunculus is born but it must be cultivated first…. I kept zoning in and out of the conversation.

-"Don't get us wrong, we aren't asking you to do this. It's an _**order**_." I looked up startled by what I had heard and when I did, I saw Lust piercing a blood seal of an armored head. I got terrified thinking it had been Al's head. Not knowing what I was doing, somehow and somewhere I gathered the strength to perform healing alchemy. Enough alchemy so that I could move around just a little bit. I closed my eyes trying to concentrate….

-"Stop! Leave my brother out of this!" I heard Ed's cries of despair, next thing I knew I had intersected Lust's nail and was down to my knees feeling cold and weak. Seeing crimson red spreading under me.

* * *

**i'm really srry for not being able to post a chapter in soo long :( my laptop broke and with school starting, I haven't had time to write... BUt i hope you enjoy this chapter!**


	8. Chapter 8

What do you do when you're realizing that you may not be able to stay in this world? What do you do when you realize that you won't see your loved ones anymore? … What do _you_ do when you realize… you're dying?...

* * *

-"A-Al… hehe, you're ok- Ungh!" I was in pain, unworldly pain. Pain I think no one should ever bare, not alone, not ever.

-"Meg! I-I'm soo sorry! I... it's all my fault, you got hurt because of my-

-"Shhh, its ok… I'm ok." I put my index finger on Alphonse's lips; I smiled faintly trying to make Al calmer. Edward tried to rush towards me but Envy kicked him in the face as he stood up, staggering.

-"You better not die Meg!" Ed exclaimed furiously as he transmutated the ceiling ruble. I couldn't keep up with what was happening but Al was yelling at Edward to stop the making of the philosopher's stone. I was concentrating trying to conserve my energy, but suddenly I caught a whiff of Scar's scent. That moment I felt hope, hope for their escape and safety. I knew Ed's feelings were all jumbled up right now and was doing what he thought had to be done for our sake.

This was low, the lowest as the low, forcing someone to do a horrible, terrible thing. By using family as bait to pressure them. I hated this, I hated that I was one of the reasons Ed was committing this terrible crime he was against from the start. The air in the room had started to get real tense, yelling and mockery were heard throughout this place. I sensed and heard fear from Ed, his breathing was too out of pace. His auto mail arm was trembling and I could hear a small _clank_ from it.

-" EDWARD ELRIC! You dare do something this retarded; I WILL come over there and make YOU into a stone myself!" I warned, yelling with all my strength. I fell to the ground afterword's, glancing at Ed's expression, he seemed relieved somehow.

-"I'm sorry, but I can't do this." Edward said faintly looking at the transmutation circle. I heard Envy screaming at Fullmetal at the top of his lungs. Suddenly the whole ground started shaking; the huge columns of red water exploded and splashed everywhere. I was grateful for that, since some of the water landed on me. I took the opportunity to gain energy from it and close the wound on my chest. I stood up to see what had caused the quake.

-"Take your brother and go!" I heard Scar order.

-"Don't be ridiculous!" Edward responded.

-"The older brother supposedly protects the younger brother, right?" Scar said bluntly as if he wanted to give Ed a hint. Edward smirked and turned towards us, but as he stepped into the pool of red water, everything around him started going berserk. Walls were being destroyed, parts of the ground started flying around uncontrollably. Edward was unconsciously transmuting everything around him. The homunculi fled cowardly at seeing this threat. I didn't know what to do; it seemed dangerous to even get close to the wind that was surrounding him. Panic had me frozen.

-"The transmutation reaction is increasing without bound!" I heard someone exclaim, I turned to see Major Armstrong, Lt. Ross and Sgt. Brosh at the doorway all in awe.

-"I don't know what to do!" I said helplessly to them, at the verge of tears. Lt. Ross smiled at me warmly and grabbed my hand. She leaded me towards Ed; we both struggled through the storm. But when we finally got somewhat close to him, the Lt. threw me towards him. I fell but held on to Edward, then I felt the Lt.'s arms around me, with a soft touch to them. We both hugged Ed tightly trying to reach his heart.

-"Mom?..." I heard Edward say faintly as the storm started to calm down. I loosened up and fell to the floor, relieved. I let out a sigh and looked at Lt. Ross; I smiled at her as if I was saying thanks. She nodded her head and gave Ed to Armstrong. Armstrong was already carrying Al in his left arm. Without noticing I jumped up to go see if Al was ok. His eyes light up and looked at me, I smiled and a tear fell from my cheek.

-"I-I-I'm glad you're ok." I said sheepishly, looking at the ground.

-"Sshh, its ok… I'm ok." Al said the exact same words that I had told him a while ago, bumping his head with mine in a soft, warm way. I smiled at him and just gazed at his face. I gazed into his eyes that were glowing inside his armored head; they were still full of life after all that had happened. And unknowingly, without thinking, I leaned my face closer to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. But before anyone could do are say anything I had fallen to the floor exhausted, not knowing what I had done.

* * *

-"Edward!" Lt. Ross exclaimed as Ed was coming to his senses. He looked as if he was still in pain.

-"W-Where am I?" He said faintly as he slowly opened his eyes. –"AL!... Ungh" Suddenly Edward rose up in full panic mode at the thought of his brother's well-being. When he finally spotted him he let out a sigh of relief but that didn't last long. As soon he saw the state his brother was in, his face dropped into a frown immediately. I wouldn't blame him since Alphonse only had his torso and part of his left leg intact. Although Alphonse's depressed face didn't help either. He had been like that since I had woken up too. Although when I woke up, there was a whole lots of commotion… I didn't know why the people in the room were so happy about. Until Hughes started chuckling and told me that Roy was really jealous, that's why he was at the back of the room looking out the window.

-"Jealous of what?" I asked innocently

-"Jelly of the kiss you gave Al, hehehe." Hughes whispered in response with a huge smirk on his face.

-"Sorry about your state, I'll get you back to normal ok?" Edward told Alphonse calmly. It woke me up from my flash back.

-"Mm-hmm." It surprised me that Al gave him the cold shoulder. Ed flinched and looked down in shame, I wanted to butt in but decided that this was their brotherly dispute and it was not my right to interfere.

-"Edward, what on earth happened in the 5th laboratory?" Sgt. Brosh inquired.

-"Nothing much." Edward responded knowing that he could not tell them all that had happened, I wanted to ask too. But I think that would have to wait too.

-"Nothing much?! But then how did you get this badly injured? Don't tell me this happened because you fell off the stairs." The Sgt. Really wanted to know at any cost.

-"Wasn't a big deal, geez. UGH! Almost learned the truth about the stone but lost it at the last moment. Now get off my -" Edward reused to give details and tried to change the subject.

-"Edward sir! I apologize beforehand for this discourtesy." Lt. Ross said out of the blue, suddenly she slapped Ed's face as hard as she could.-"You nearly lost your life! You got to remember that you're still just a child! Can't go all loopy de loop around dangerous places like that." She continued sternly looking at him with eyes of concern. She quickly went back to her posture.

-"I beg for your forgiveness." She exclaimed.

-"I beg for your forgiveness!" Sgt. Brosh repeated, assuming her same stance. I was tempted to do the same thing but was interrupted by Ed's sheepishness and apologies.

-"AHEM, hehe. I think you should call your girlfriend Ed so she can fix your arm. I think your arm might be missing a bolt…" I suggested standing at the doorway smirking, Ed of course blushed and denied that he had a girlfriend. I stepped aside letting him pass. When he came back he had THE dumbest smile ever.

-"Sooo what happened?" I asked mockingly, staring at Ed trying to get a response.

-"Huh? Oh Winry's coming by central tomorrow." Edward responded as he climbed into bed. I smirked and chuckled.

-"Ohoho~ I finally get to meet her. It's time you got my approval of her." I said with a lot of sarcasm, Edward looked at me with a confused look.

-"Did you hit your head or something at the 5th lab? Cause your acting like psychopath and a perv… kind of like Roy." Ed suggested as he gazed into my soul. I stood there frozen and then it hit me.

-"AAAAAAAAAAAH! CRAP! freaking, stupid Uncle Kimblee's weirdness rubbed off on me! I'm surrounded by creepers, Roy, Uncle, everyone." I yelled in horror. I fell to my knees as if I was defeated; Ed chuckled and said that maybe I would return to normal since I had realized it.

-"Hahaha at least you haven't lost your sense of humor or of over dramatic character, right Al?" Edward asked jokingly.

-"Hmph… yeah I guess." That's all that Alphonse said, he didn't say anything else the rest of the night.

* * *

The next morning Hughes came to surprise visit us the hospital.

-"Yo, Ed!" He saluted Ed, he looked at Alphonse and said.-"You ok too Al?" he asked with concern. Then glanced at me, I was sitting in the corner reading a new interesting book I had found. It was about how you could place fragments of your soul into any object, but it was just a theory. –"How you doing, Meg?" He inquired as he messed up my hair; I smiled and started reading my book again.

-"Heeey I'm hungry why don't you guys get me lunch?" Hughes asked the Lt. and Sgt., The Sgt. was about to complain but Lt. Ross shushed him and both of them hurried out of the room. Hughes gave them a false smile as they left, but as soon as a door slam was heard; his expression hardened a little, a bit more than usually. He went to sit down at the end of Edward's bed and started asking about the 5th laboratory. At first Ed was just silent hearing every explanation Hughes was giving about the evidence, about how he thinks that all that damage wasn't done just by Scar's pursue of him. Also when he talked he tried to make sense of the non-normality's of the whole incident. Ed tried to deny everything until…

-"Homunculus, ok?! That's what happened." He finally exclaimed looking away in pain. That really spiked up the conversation, Hughes' jaw opened, and listened carefully to what Edward had to say. Edward explained how the stone was to be used for them to make them become human, told Hughes how they had tried to make it at the expense of the prisoners. Even Ed asked for a second opinion form Al, but it resulted as the usual '_Mhhmm'._ Hughes' face had started to sweat, I decided to let them do all the talking and keep to myself my own details since they weren't important or… irrelevant like stupid Uncle still being alive. Ed continued his explanation, even added pictures of the homunculi and the supposed guardians. Now I didn't know they were guardians… So I started to pay attention, and the only thing I got from it was that the guardian was also a man, not only one but brothers. But got their souls sucked into a metal armor, when they should have been executed for their crimes. Ed fought them, then earned their trust but at the end they were killed because of their alliance. Then I remembered when Lust had pierced a metal helmet and Ed had gotten more agitated, and how the helmet also had said something to Ed but I hadn't been paying enough attention to hear. Then I zoned out again because I knew the rest of the story. Oh! But also apparently the monster was a man formerly known as Dr. Tucker the Sewing Life Alchemist, but he got into jail for transmutating his own daughter. _'So many weirdoes out there and most of them are alchemists…'_I thought as Ed kept explaining what an Ouroboros tattoo meant.

-"Thanks for telling me, I'll take it from here." Hughes said after Edward's explanation, he ruffled his hair and gave him a warm smile. He needed it; the boy needed the show of affection. –"Rest, you guys should only think about yourselves right now." He suggested still with a smile, Edward glanced at Al with a smile on his face thinking about spending quality time with his beloved brother. I had a feeling that what Barry told Alphonse really struck him hard.

-"Let Edward rest until his mechanic arrives, then you can make fun of him. But for now keep reading like you were the whole conversation." Hughes scolded. I giggled and shrugged, but that made things worse causes this guy is worse than a freaking profiler, he knows everything. 

-"Hey I'm fine! Thou needst not to worry about mua." I said as I stood up and bowed, he chuckled and left my case alone. '_Probably should think about a good excuse about not telling 'bout Uncle.'_ I thought as I sat back down, glanced and smiled at Al, got rejected, and returned to the page where I had left.

* * *

-"You mean… YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU WHERE AT THE HOSPITAL!" Winry exclaimed as soon as she had entered the hospital room. Pfft hehehe Edward was in a heap of trouble, I mean even Armstrong's face was all like '_oh cheese and crackers!'_ .

-"Yeaah, well one thing led to a thing and that led to another…" Edward tried to explain, but things got worse.

-"That's not a laughing matter Ed!" She suddenly exclaimed.

-"Winry?" Ed asked surprised for her reaction.

-"I didn't do your maintenance properly, and because of that you got injured." She apologized looking down with shame at the ground.

-"Darn tootin' ya did! "I faked a southern accent, which made her head lay lower.

-"Hey! Stay out of this!" Ed was al red and trying to make me shut up to make Winry feel wanted. -"Winry this isn't particularly your fault, right Al?" Now he was seeking a yes man, I bet he wasn't gonna get from Alphonse at this particular moment.

-"Mhhmm." His response for the past two days was growing to be very annoying.

-"Hehe see? Your maintenance was perfect!" He continued to complement her as he rubbed his right automail arm, he couldn't been more of a kiss up right now. –"Plus the reason it broke was because I wasn't careful with it." Suddenly Winry's eyes lighted up and saw that Ed was stupid enough not to know that he was missing a screw.

-"Well, of course! You've always been to rough when it comes to your metal arm. Ahahaha" Winry was trying to look like she did nothing wrong. I started to fake cough at the comment, but it resulted at a glare from the woman mechanic… first time I meet her and I didn't think I was making a good impression on her.

-"Oh you haven't met Meg!" Edward exclaim seeing his rudeness, I smirked and stood up. I walked over and started to shake her hand.

-"Nice to make you're acquaintance, name's Megan Kimblee. Call me Meg for short, no nicknames please." I fake smiled the best I could; she lightened up and introduced herself. –"Oh may I ask, what is your relation to this half boy, half machine?" I inquired trying to be formal enough to be sarcastic. She flinched and blushed a bit. I chuckled and smirk at Ed, he was red as a tomato. Maybe I was having too much fun with this…

-"She does sound as sarcastic and demanding as you told me." Winry mumbled under her breath.

-"Ohoho~ did he really say that, hmm? Ahaha well I'm quite honored to be such an infamous person." I exclaimed as I glared at Ed, then I went to grab my book. –"I bid adieu my sweeties, gotta go to read some other place since I'm such a nuisance to this weird family." I commented as I walked out the door. I heard them discussing about me and how Winry should hold her tongue because I can hear anything. Then they all gasped and kept quiet since they realized I could still hear them. I giggled as I walked to the payphone, and dialed Roy's office number.

-"Need an author reference for the book called "soul in an object", a cubicle for experiments and dinner since I may take too long." I ordered as soon I heard the phone click on the other side.

-"Whoa, there sweetheart! Slow down, you have to ask nicely first." Mustang mocked and chuckled through the phone.

-"I thought Riza was going to pick up instead of you. Knowing you were gonna pick up I wouldn't have called." I spat back, but as always Roy just chuckled at my insults.

-"You injure me baby; I thought you had called just to talk with me and have a nice conversation." He continued, and tonight he was on a role with the annoying flirts.

-"Look I just need a cubicle near the hospital so I can come and go as I please. This is important Mustang, so stop joking around." I scolded with annoyance I my voice. A big and long sigh was heard through the phone.

-"Fine, fine. Only if you ask me nicely I'll have the things for you in a flash." He responded at the taste of defeat.

-"And by you, you mean Riza, right?" I mocked.

-"Look do you want it or –

-"Yes, yes I do. Ugh! … Pretty please may I have a cubicle for investigations?" It took a lot of effort not to vomit during the process.

-"Beloved Overlord Lt. Coronel Roy Mustang." He corrected.

-"Ok, do you want to lose your teeth?" I threatened.

-"... Fair enough, come by, my office and someone will drive you over there." Roy said before he hung up. I sighed and knew this was going to be a trap, so I called again and told Riza to pick me up from the hospital as soon as she found the cubicle.

* * *

It had turned into sundown when I finally decided to take a break from the researching. I sighed and leaned my chair to see the view better form the cubicle window. I thought that I better go back to go check on up on Edward and Al. With a lot of will force I took off to the hospital, thinking about my investigation. How I could, if I became powerful enough, duplicate myself during a battle or if I needed to be in two places or more at once I could always be there. I walked up to the hospital door as I heard Alphonses' first normal words.

-"I-I didn't get to choose this body because I wanted to." He commented sternly looking at the wall.

-"Sorry…" Ed responded ashamed. Winry knew something was up and started asking them what had happened between them. Neither responded, as I suspected. But that put her on the edge; she started yelling at them how she never knew about them, about their injuries. Until now she had known about them and asked if she wasn't important enough. Then I noticed that they never sent any letters to her that's why I really didn't think she was that important.

-"I don't care anymore!" She exclaimed in the verge of tears as she bolted out of the room, almost slamming the door into my face. I followed her and ran into Hughes.

-"Well, well! It's nice to finally meet you! I'm Lt. Coronel Hughes, it's a pleasure." He extended his hand with a warm smile. I knew what was going to happen next… he ruffled his pocket and took out a picture of-

-"This my cute little daughter ALICIA! Isn't she THE cutest girlie you've ever seen?! Ooooh~ guess what?! Tomorrow is her birthday! She's growing up sooo fast, and becoming more and more cute and beautiful each day." Hughes never missed an opportunity to brag about her lil' girl.

-"Oh yeah… It's Ed's birthday tomorrow too." Winry said in return looking like she was in an awkward position. Hughes got more excited and then asked if she had a place to stay.

-"Huh? Oh, no not really…" She responed and before she could do anything, Winry was being dragged towards the entrance of the hospital. Hughes started talking how Winry was going to get Alicia a huge teddy bear for her birthday, and that she would absolutely love it. But no one would top of HIS gift for Alicia. I chuckled to myself knowing that Hughes would cheer her up no matter what. But sort of felt left out because he abandoned me at Ed's hospital door… I don't think he even noticed me there. I sighed and closed the door, knowing that right now wasn't the best time to say hi. I walked back to my cubicle to work on some experiments I had left developing by themselves. And before I knew it was pitch black outside, you could hear the crickets chirping and the cars passing by. People rushing to get to their families, to their kids to at least be able to sing them a lullaby before they went to sleep. A melody played in my head of one of the lullabies my mother and father and maybe even Russell would sing to me when I refused to go to sleep or was too afraid to. I giggled because dad always forgot the lyrics to the second verse of the song, then mom had to correct him because he would start making up his own words as he went on. I felt tears streaming down my cheeks at the memory of my long lost family, but I suddenly remembered how Ed and Alphonse had heard Russell humming it when we were traveling. They learned half of the song and would start humming each time Russell or I did. I looked at the street and at all the houses that were full of families, happy families, the family I used to have. Well… I have a new one now. '_A quite peculiar one at that!' _I thought as I chuckled again, I pressed my head against the window and just stared into the night. Then out of the blue, I thought I heard my Uncle's voice saying

-"See you soon, my favorite little niece." In a whisper. I jumped up startled, but saw nothing there… Until I felt a hair tie in my right hand, it was the kind Uncle Kimblee used. I smiled faintly and shoved it into my pocket. Suddenly I smelled a pervert in the room, and soon after I felt someone pick me up and run off with my person. Next thing I knew I was in the car heading to, I think, Hughes' house.

-"Now why the heck do you have the tendency of kidnapping me?!" I asked outraged. –"Was having a moment you know?" I complained some more, in my annoyance I slapped the back of Roy's head. He slapped my hand back and looked back at the road.

-"Hughes asked me to pick you up; he wanted it to be quick too. He said something about its Alicia's first girl's sleepover… Do you know what nonsense he's talking about?" Roy was as confused as me, but if it was an opportunity to kidnap me he would take anything.

-"We are going to his house, right?" I inquired, 'scared' from the answer that awaited me. To my surprise he sighed and shook his head.

-"Yeah, if your even one minute late Hughes would scold me. Now if this would be a different case…" He looked at me with this evil face and chuckled to his content. Shivers went up my spine from just sitting next to this wacko. –"Let's just say we would had our little _fun._" I smiled sarcastically and made as if I was vomiting, he just chuckled and said that I would've enjoyed it.

* * *

The next morning it was chaos trying to get everything ready for Alicia's birthday party that would start in an hour. Hughes, Gracia and Winry were all stressed out because it was taking too long to set the decorations up. Of course they had forgotten they had an alchemist in the room… I sighed, clapped my hands and before they knew it, the whole house was decorated. Hughes came and hugged me tight and said thank you a thousand times. I chuckled and brushed him off.

* * *

This mornings' set up chaos was nothing compared to the disaster that was taking place right now. A dozen of little tykes were running around with toys or needles to 'pin the tail on the donkey' but in actuality they were either pinning it on themselves or the other guests. I, of course, was the one taking care of them. Since the parents thought the party was more like a rest for them. Winry tried (and I emphasize the tried) to help to control the little ones but gave up after they pinned her butt more than three times. Everything calmed down when it was cake time, now everybody was relaxing. After I helped with the cake serving I went and sat with Hughes that was talking to Winry. Apparently I came in late in the conversation because she looked motivated about something, she wanted to leave but Hughes said she could leave after the party.

-"You can leave with her too, Meg." He suggested as he saw me approach them. I nodded and started eating cake.

-"So what did you get Alicia, Winry?" I inquired with my mouth full of the mushy, multi colored, vanilla cake.

-"A doll, not much. I know…" This girl felt insecure by everything, I swear.

-"No, no that's good! I got her a dress, yours is more… usable." I tried to cheer her up. –"I mean it's the thought that counts, can't be perfect at everythin' " I continued gulping down hard. She became wide opened and thanked me, but as soon as she saw my confused face she explained how that's the words she needed to hear. It was how she knew she was still important to Ed and Al.

-"Pffft, who said you weren't?! Daaang those boys sometimes never shut up when it comes to their childhood friend. I mean I'm surprised you haven't caught on, you're special to them. But more special to Edward." I winked at her as I got closer and rubbed my shoulder against her, as I was giving her a hint. She blushed and looked away. I chuckled and mumble young love, which I bet made her redder.

-"AHEM, I have a very important announcement to make. Alicia you know how mommy and daddy said that during your birthday party we were going to give you another, but better present?" Hughes asked with a big smirk on his face, Alicia nodded excited. She rushed towards her father and hugged him; Hughes picked her up and started walking towards me. –"Alicia there's going to be a new member in our family." I looked at them confused thinking that they had finally gotten her a puppy.

-"Alicia, we want to adopt Meg. We want to make Meg become your older sister." He said, suddenly the whole world stopped around me. I felt my face go red and a tear run down my cheek, falling on my pearl pink skirt.

-"I-I-I don't k-know what to say-y" I was trembling. I was filled with joy and confusion, I was in shock. Not a few months ago, nobody wanted me but my brother. A few months ago I was an orphan with no friends. But now Ed and Alphonse have given me a new life, a better life. Given me new friends and new adventures, I've experienced new feelings and a new sadness.

-"You don't have to respond! You can tell us later, don't worry!" He knew I was perplexed and didn't want to pressure me. –"Just know that whatever you choose, our feelings won't change." Hughes reassured me with a warm smile; Alicia ran up to me and hugged me tightly. I hugged her back while blushing.

* * *

-"Wanna try your luck?" I asked as Winry and I walked up to the roof, I was carrying a present box and Winry had a cake. She nodded her head and looked nervous as she opened the door, but then felt better as she saw Ed's smile when he saw her go in.

-"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" We both yelled, Edward chuckled. As Winry cut the cake, Ed vigorously ripped open the box. His face looked like a child during Christmas when he noticed that Santa Claus had come. He giggled as he saw all the knickknacks we got him. Small, common alchemists' tools anyone would have, but he cherished them greatly. Winry asked Edward about how his auto mail was doing. And then she started fixing it. I glanced at Alphonse who was sitting in the far corner of the terrace; I walked towards him and sat down next to him.

-"You're wearing a skirt for the first time, Meg." Edward mocked but I ignored him.

-"Beautiful isn't it? The sky, I mean… And don't you dare respond '_mhhmm'." _I warned jokingly, but I would've taken that annoying Mhhmm than just plain silence. So I just sat there looking at the sky, and thinking on what I would I respond to Hughes and Gracia.

-"Al, I'm sorry. I'll fix you right up." Edward said as he came up to Alphonse with his broken parts. –"Al I'm not giving up, ok? I'll find a different way to get us back to normal. No matter what, you understand?" Edward was trying to amend ways with Alphonse.

-" I'm sure you can get yourself back to normal, but I doubt that will be as well for me." Those were the first real, harsh words Al had said in a while.

-"Hmm? Hahaha 'course I can! Now hold still." Ed transmutated Alphonse's body back. I would have done it way before but I was too afraid that I might break his blood seal, so I just waited for Ed to do it. But then Alphonse started mumbling and asking how this resembled the first time Edward had gotten his soul into the metal armor. Ed affirmed the thought.

-"Along with my memories." Ed was astonished to hear these words come out of his younger brother's mouth. –"I mean memories are just information, and you being such a good alchemist. You could've just implanted them easily…"

-"Is that what you've been thinking all this time?" Ed was confused but still managed to faintly smile back.

-"Remember back at Resembol, when you wanted to tell me something, but you suddenly stopped? You wanted to tell me I was a fake right? You wanted to tell me I was just a replacement for the real Alphonse!" Al exclaimed with anger in his voice. Ed's face went completely blank; you could see that he was devastated that his own brother could even think like that.

-"No Al what he really wanted to say was –

Winry was cut off by Al's hand almost slapping her; I was shocked that he resorted to violence.

-"Shut up! There has never, EVER been an Alphonse Elric!" Al was furious now. And Ed was still in shock, not knowing what to do.

-"What?! You've always existed! There's me, grandma! Ask them! Believe me Al!" Winry exclaimed in total despair.

-"What if your all deceiving me? Huh?! What then! "Alphonse was about to hit Winry again when-

-"So that's what you've been thinking lately, huh?" Edward asked faintly, not looking up.

-"What about you, you haven't answered me yet! Why won't you respond?! WHY?!" I could hear the sadness and agony in Al's voice; he was done talking with them. He was walking away but Edward grabbed him tightly but was still looking at the same spot of ground.

-"Let me go! I'm done talking! What's the point of me living?!" Al asked furiously, brushing off Ed. Edward clung on Al's arm again, he wasn't about to give up.

-"You stupid jerk!" Ed exclaimed not letting go of Alphonse's arm even though he was being thrown around like a rag doll. I glanced at Winry as saw that it was a shock to her that her childhood friends were fighting like brutes. I was shocked too; I never thought Alphonse could turn into the violent one. Al got restless and in the shaking motion he knocked Edward's face and sent him flying. I caught him, when Edward looked up his mouth was bleeding and his cheek got swollen. I glared at Alphonse, this had gone too far. Ed muttered Al's name faintly as he tried to stand up.

-"S-Stay back! … Stay back! Get away from me!" Alphonse was in total breakdown mode. He sprinted towards the railing of the terrace.

-"Oh no you don't Alphonse Elric!" I sprinted after him and suddenly he jumped over the railing, I clapped my hands and made some stairs. I could hear Edward calling Al's name and then calling mine. I didn't care. I was going to catch that boy and show him how irrational he was being. I was mad at him for believing Barry, for thinking that Edward would be that cold hearted.

* * *

It had started raining, and little by little the rain washed away Al's scent. A vague smell was still roaming the streets, but not enough for me to be able to pin point Al. But suddenly his scent grew stronger by the minute and before I knew it, he was right in front of me. He sensed my presence and turned around, surprised. I slapped him as hard as I could, almost knocking his helmet off. Shocked, he just stood there and started at me.

-"How'd you find me?" He asked puzzled.

-" Simple! I have your scent memorized." Soon I realized how stupid I had sounded, and tried to change the subject. –"Now Alphonse why did you run away?! How thick can your skull get? Now, I wasn't there at Resembool, but I can hear and smell when people lie. As weird as that sounds, Winry wasn't lying and neither was Barry. But think a little bit, who do you trust more? Winry, your childhood friend or Barry, a serial killer?" I asked sternly, meeting his gaze with my scolding eyes. Alphonse looked down for a moment and then responded.

-"I believe Winry more, but what if she's being deceived too? Brother didn't respond so you couldn't have told if he was lying." He responded cleverly, I thought for a moment and had the urge to respond but had a feeling that right now it wasn't the time. I sighed and just looked at Al with disapproving eyes.

-"Thanks for looking for me…" He mumbled under his breath, I looked up blushing and smiled back. He opened his arms and I stood still for a moment, but gave in.

-"This doesn't mean I forgive you for running off. Also if I catch a cold I blame you." I complained, he giggled like a little child. Like he usually does, suddenly I noticed two children in the background wearing rags and sunglasses. Both of them had dark skin and white like hair. I paused for a moment and walked closer, then I stopped dead in my tracks.

-"A-Al, are these Ishbalans?"

* * *

**This chapter is a laid back one. Not much action, it's like sort of a filler chapter. It goes slowly but i hope you enjoy it! **


	9. Chapter 9

Next thing I knew we were at the underground sewage of Central, you'd be surprised to see how many tents and people could fit underground. The masses of people starred at us as we walked with the Ishbalan children, their gazes were so piercing I could feel myself blush uncontrollably. They weren't hostile to us to my surprise, but they weren't the welcoming type either. We followed the kids into a tent where we found an old Ishbalan man who seemed to be the Clan's chief. He chuckled at our amazement to their home; both Al and I excused our rudeness in a bashful way. The old man chuckled again as he thanked us for looking out for the two children and proceeded to ask Al about his armor. But his tone of voice seemed somewhat hostile.

-"You can relax; they're not with the military." I heard someone say behind us. We both quickly turned around to see Scar leaning on the wall next to us. Then the atmosphere got all tense when Scar and Al were glaring at each other. One of the Ishbalan kids stepped in front of Scar as if saying he would protect him.

-"You know them?" The old man inquired. We all nodded in response.

-"Yeah… somewhat." Scar didn't want to admit he was one way or another affiliated with us.

-"Well then! That's great… dear visitors please do not tell other souls about our residence under your city." The chief pleaded with unease in his voice. We reassured that we knew about Ishbal and what they had suffered.

-"The military attacked us!" The eldest boy exclaimed in anger, personally I wouldn't blame him, I wasn't in good terms with the military either.

-"It's true. Before they had slaughtered us, but as if that wasn't enough, they keep pursuing us without end. I despise all state alchemists. If they want me that badly they should come and kill me now since it's easier when I am injured." Scar spat, looking with a gaze that could kill. Then noticed that Ed was missing. -"Your brother –

-"I don't care what happens to him…" Alphonse responded coldly as he turned his gaze to the ground. I immediately slapped his arm and was about to scold him when the little girl that was next to Scar exclaimed that she was missing her necklace in anguish.

-"Forget about it!" The eldest brushed off the concern emotionlessly. Then when the girl realized where she had dropped it, she sprinted away so quickly it didn't give anyone time to react properly. I glanced at Al and Scar as I stood up to follow the girl. Then I noticed that I was going too fast for them so I waited for them at the top of the stairs.

-"I don't know what happened between you and your brother, Alphonse Elric. But if you hate each other it works out better for me." I heard Scar comment as they climbed up the stairs, I was about to start a fight but I recognized it wasn't the best time.

-"Scar… do you think I'm a human being. Like do you sense I'm real?" Alphonse tested as they kept walking, but to his dismay Scar just looked at him like he was stupid or something and kept on with his search. Personally I think he didn't know what to say. So we kept on with our trail until we found the kids kneeling on the floor franticly searching. Scar casually picked up the locket and asked if it was theirs. I sensed that someone from afar might be watching our every move. But I shook off that feeling and followed the others back to the underground camp. As we walked, the little kids started talking about the importance of the amulet Rick was holding. From what I caught from the story was that, during the Ishbalan war their house was attacked, but during the raid their mother had supposedly abandoned them because of fear. I thought this idea was preposterous since no mother could really leave their children just because she was terrified, I mean mothers usually give their lives for their children. Anyways she got scared and she ran into a bedroom but that bedroom soon exploded afterwards. Nonetheless when the eldest kid told us about the story; he sounded so bitter and angry towards his mother that not even the small girl could say anything in the poor mother's defense. I thought about a million ways it could have been a misunderstanding but I just decided to keep quiet and just follow the Ishbalan children to the camp.

When we arrived at the entrance to the sewer, Rick ran towards the end of the alley to check if the coast was clear so we could run inside. But as soon as she peeked her little head out; three military dogs ambushed her, one of them started shooting franticly in our direction. Luckily Alphonse shielded us against the raging bullets. The guy that was shooting got frustrated and charged towards Al without hesitation, big mistake. As soon as he tried to hit Alphonse with the gun, he blocked it and sent him flying. His comrade got mad and was about to shoot right before Scar used his right hand to transmutated the concrete floor so it would open underneath him.

-"Let go of Rick!" Alphonse exclaimed as he tried to run towards the captive girl. But as soon as we all ran they threw a smoke bomb and ran away like cowards. I panicked, I lost my mind. I mean completely, if the military knew the location of the Ishbalans they would capture them and treat them worse than wild animals. And… and if they had Rick, oh they would torture the poor thing.

-"The- the military, those…those, agh! Those _moutrhhj-_" Scar covered my mouth before I started cussing those dogs out. I was about to explode actually, I _really_ was about to snap.

-"This is the last straw for the military! Come on Al I'll use my watch and I can take a random civilians car. Or maybe a motorcycle… which one's quicker? No, no a car cause we're all going." They were all astonished on how livid I was; they dared not to object my decision. But when it came to driving Scar was obviously the only one that could manage to properly drive a car. Luckily though he didn't see me whip out my watch or if not he would've started man hunting me. No, he was too busy investigating with Al about the people who took Rick.

-"Head to the outskirts of the city, that's where we'll find the mercenaries." Al stated as Scar drove through the city. It was dark outside, and apparently these people were mercenaries that dressed up as military so they would get in trouble. But they still somehow worked for them by selling information, people, supplies, etc. I saw and heard Alphonse whisper to Scar about how impractical it was to take Rick's older brother, Leo. And I forgot to mention the old chief had stuck to us when the Ishbalan boy ran to tell him the news.

-"What?! Do you have a problem with us going too?!" The eldest demanded, Al was speechless then both the old man and I chuckled.

-"Us Ishbalans really think highly of blood relations. Hoho! I would even give this old man's life for poor little Rick." The chief explained.

-"Course it is! But then again... our mom abandoned us." After that the whole car ride was silent.

* * *

BOOOM!

Al made quite the entrance, not to mention Scar did an unnecessary whole in the wall next to Alphonse's explosion.

-"Looky what we have here! Just what we needed; guys you take on the armored boy and I take care of the scarred man." A guy with a backpack that had two pumps ordered, course he wouldn't think the girl standing next to the armored boy was a threat. Well that's the element of surprise for ya. But before I used it I glanced at Scar that was being attacked by the guy with the back pack, did I mention his hair? Well it was a mess, the upper part was spiked up and the lower was all straight down hanging on his shoulders. I'm going to name him Grant. Well Grant was slashing everything but Scar, and Scar didn't have a chance to counter attack because he was too busy evading. When I glimpsed back at Al, all the mercenaries were knocked out. Coincidentally the same time I looked back a huge body of armor clashed knifes with Alphonse, but this body of armor was familiar.

-"I'll put you out of your misery! Then, you won't have to worry no more about whether or not your memories are real." Barry hollered as he kept slashing Al, but because of what he said Alphonse was losing his balance. Unexpectedly a missile was fired from within the building, hitting Al in the back. Making him roll uncontrollably, Barry took this opportunity to strike but I wasn't about to let him. As I dashed towards Barry I made an air knife, slashing part of his mane. Also I kicked him in the face soon afterwards, he stumbled but before I could hit him again, the coward raced towards Al that wasn't done recuperating.

-"Stop!" I heard Edward yell while he blocked the attack with his metal arm.

-"Why are you here?!" Al sounded outraged.

-"Because we care about you Al! We searched for you the _whole _day." Winry screamed from a distance. I smiled a thank you smile and let a sigh of relief when Alphonse got all pumped up to fight with his brother. Both of them knocked Barry out cold, but before they could celebrate another missile was shot. I quickly transmutated the ground under them to make a wall that could protect them.

-"Al I've been too scared to ask but… AL DO YOU HATE ME?" Ed howled even louder because of the shower of missiles the wall was receiving.-"It's my fault that you wound up in that body!" The wall gave out and an explosion occurred.

-"Brother!"

-"That' why I-why I was wondering if you hated me…" You could hear the grief in Edward's voice; I couldn't imagine Russell hating me. I could only sympathize that this feeling was eating Edward from the inside.

-"That's what you wanted to ask me?! I-

-"Alphonse looks out!" Winry shrieked as Barry shot up in the sky and lunged himself in the direction of the brothers.

-"Brother... how could I hate you?!" Alphonse punched Barry and sent him soaring who knows where. I of course during the whole thing was doing the dirty work, putting all the dogs in the kennel… when I say this I mean I made a cage and well… caged them. Soon afterwards I heard Grant yelling in disapproval on how Ed was a military dog too. He was just upset he was the only one left and they had all lost. But of course someone had to ruin the victory by running towards Ed.

-"Barry give it up!" I exclaimed before more fights could begin. But without hesitation Scar split Barry in half with his right arm making his upper half land on Grant. In disgust I just stood there looking how Barry's soul dissolved and left the armor. In my mind Scar could've done with Barry a bit more humanely and less recklessly. This was because the backpack on Grant's back was over heating and soon after it started throwing little shards and knifes. All of a sudden I see Rick on the ground with a knife to her chest. Everybody ran to her aid, when I got there her older brother was holding her in his arms.

-"Rick! Rick! You-" Leo couldn't finish his sentence. Rick opened her eyes and smiled faintly showing how she as fine. Then she took out her mother's locket, the locket had a dent in it.

-"Mom… she-she saved me!" Rick exclaimed in joy, she showed the locket to her brother that opened up by itself. A picture of the three of them and some small medicine fell on Rick's chest. The old man picked it and started examining it.

-"If I'm correct this is eye medicine, that's right I recall now! Your mother had bad eyes but she pretended that she could still see so that you wouldn't worry. It must've been hard for her trying to keep up with everyday chores, trying to pretend that her body still functioned properly." Old man commented.

-"Then that means… she didn't abandoned us, she just didn't see Rock and I sitting on the bottom of the stairs. So she ran to our room to find us. But when see did… the room exploded." Both brothers were in tears, but I could tell both of them were at peace now.

* * *

We were at the docks, it was sunrise and the Ishbalans were thanking us, waving goodbye. Rick, Leo and the old man had some words with us.

-"I'll hold the memories of my mother dearly." Leo proclaimed.

-"And I'll hold on to my memories. My real memories." Alphonse assured. I saw Scar glance at Alphonse.

-"Alphonse Elric, earlier I saw something. I saw the tears you could not bear in that body, but these tears were of a human being." Scar assured then turned to Ed as if expecting him to ask him something. Which he did and them two started discussing how the Ishbalans once sought the philosopher stone too, it so they could protect themselves against the military.

-"So where is it now?" Ed asked eagerly, but Scar ignored him and went on to help an old lady with her baggage. Of course Edward started yelling his head off trying to get a response but instead I interrupted.

-"Are you sorry?" I asked bluntly, Scar looked back trying to remain calm.

-"I do regret the euthanization of the innocent, but I know an apology is not going to make things better. You may hate me, or hunt me down as you like-

-"Do I really need your permission? Look here Scar, the only reason you haven't had a trip to the hospital is cause you actually know how to put differences aside and act like a normal human being. Yeah, I respect that but I still dislike your guts…" I paused and my expression turned into a devious one. –"I'm not the one to kill or to make the first move so I thought that this would give you a cause to, you know, try to kill me." I showed him my golden watch; by the way I had timed it perfectly because the boats had started moving along the river a bit. His expression was priceless, he didn't if to be mad or just let it go.

-"You know, just so it looks like self-defense." I winked at him and in the distance I could see him fuming in his quiet way he does things. We all laughed in Scars' face as we walked away from the dock. Ed and Al started discussing how they used to fight about a great deal when they were little. Winry and I just smile to ourselves and went along the trail.

-"Hey Meg, how did you know Barry was lying and brother was telling the truth?" Both Edward and Alphonse turned around to ask.

-"Well scientifically, I could tell by the sound waves of Ed's voice that he wasn't lying and that he was really shaken by what you had accused him of. Plus when you told him about how Ed could modify memories, I could tell that was the first time Edward was hearing this." I explained in a matter-of-fact way.

-"And non-scientifically?" Alphonse inquired; I looked away for this one.

-"Because I wouldn't fall for a fake Alphonse, would I?" I muttered under my breath. –"So what's for dinner?! I AM STARVING." I ran in front of them and giggled.

-"Wait I didn't catch that, can you repeat it?" Al curiously interrogated, Edward also wanted to know. Glancing toward Winry I noticed that she had caught wind of my muttering and understood what I meant, both of us smiling deviously.

-"Nope!" Jokingly I punched his armor and kept on walking as if nothing happened.

* * *

The following days Edward and Alphonse did some research at the library while I got stuck to work with Colonel Mustang. I of course had the mornings to myself, so I dedicated that time to my own research. Fourth day of working by myself; I finally accomplished my first human body and soul bounding. Now I could literally be at two places at once at the same time! Of course this clone only lasted 5 minutes as I intended, it was a trial run to see if it didn't go rouge on me. But binding part of my own soul to the body depleted my energy almost all the way. It would take a great deal of practice and mastery but it was worth it. On another page, the Elric brothers decided to go visit their old teacher, they told me that she probably knew another way to get Al's body back and Ed's limbs. So we are headed to Dublith, Winry is coming with us because she wanted to pass by Rush Valley. It's this town that is full of auto mail, since it was on the way she tagged along. Only problem was Roy, he would not let me go.

-"Why not?! This is important." I demanded but Roy would not give in. I sighed out loud. -"What do I need to do so I can take two weeks off?" I continued with annoyance in my tone, barely making eye contact.

-"Hmm why don't you surprise me with your _romantic_ ideas?" Mustang mocked as he came closer to my personal space.

-"I'll go to lunch with you." I mumbled, looking at the ground.

-"Been there, done that. Do you not remember?" Again with his mocking voice, I couldn't believe what I was about to offer.

-"When I return, after a day of work… We can go, eat dinner, go to the movie theatre and you can drive me home." You have no idea how much it hurt to say all that, only good thing was, nobody I knew heard that.

-"I absolutely love the way you think! But this is two weeks we are talking about, why not a walk in the park too?" He came closer and grabbed my hand. With-holding the urge to punch him I responded this time making eye contact so he knew I was serious.

-"Don't push your luck. But if I feel that you have no bad intentions I shall grant you that little treat." To my surprise Roy yelled _'wohoo!'_ With a leap and left humming a song I've never heard. '_Such a child.'_ I thought. After that I ran to the train station to give my goodbyes to Gracia, Alicia, Armstrong, Lt. Ross, and Sgt. Brosh. Hughes pulled me aside the moment I said my farewell. He asked me about my thoughts of me being part of their family, I told him the truth. I really loved being with them, but I wanted to be a Kimblee, even though my whole family was weird. This who I am, and of course I told Hughes I could be his daughter, but not legally. He ruffled my hair and hugged me tightly; I sensed he would start crying if I didn't leave right now. So I ran to the train and waved goodbye to my friends, and of course Armstrong was crying in the background just as much as Alicia. But the moment the train had started to depart I had a strong feeling I should've stayed, because this might be the last I saw my 'father'.

* * *

-"Don't yell Winry!" Edward exclaimed when he told her we weren't really going to Dublith.

-"We are still going to Rush valley, we just don't want our teacher to know about us. I mean if teacher knew about us doing human transmutation and being in the military… we would be dead." Alphonse explained with a shiver.

-"Yep! We are going to search for Scar so he can tell us about the philosopher's stone. Even though it would've been nice to know this before I ridiculed myself in the docks not just a week ago." I glared at the Elric brothers. But they just apologized and we kept on talking about our plans.

* * *

So we went on with our expedition, and arrived to Rush valley as planned. I called the office just as I promised Riza I would do every time I had a chance to find a public phone. But this time Havoc answered the phone.

-"Where's Riza, Havoc?" I inquired.

-"Lt. Hawkeye and Colonel Mustang are investigating a crime scene, but I think they just came back. Wait a minute Megs." Havoc thought it was funny to call me Megs, but I didn't mind since it wasn't that bad of a nickname.

-"Hello?" A low voice that sounded that it was grieving responded.

-"Um… are you ok Mustang?" I was getting nervous.

-"Yeah, I'm fine. What do you need?" He sounded monotone. No flirts? Now I was very anxious.

-"Just checking in. Mustang tell me what's happening, why did Havoc answer Riza's phone line?"

-"She just wasn't here to answer, anything else? I have to go."

-"Yes! What is wrong?! You are making me anxious. That crime scene Havoc told me you were investigating obviously got you shaken." I was now raising my voice and the people at the hotel were eyeing me.

-"Well… it's none of your business. Before demanding, learn to respect your superiors I am going to hang up now and-

-"Lt. Colonel Roy Mustang you either tell me now or I am going to have to go back to East City or Central or where ever the heck you are right now!"

-"Don't yell at your superiors! You will learn about the news afterwards, so please just leave me be!" He was begging now, my feelings were all mixed up, not knowing what was happening. Not thinking I yelled into the phone.

-"I TOLD YOU, I AM –

-"Meg, calm down. If you must, you can come down to Central but that is not necessary, I hate to be the bearer of the news… but Brigadier General Hughes was just shot two hours ago." Riza's voice took charge of the phone. –"But please do not tell the Elric brothers yet or they will act irrational, we do not know the murderer." She continued with a sorry voice and hung up. I was devastated, completely torn in two. Can't tell the Elric brothers? But who would then? Probably they wanted to with until they find the murderer to tell them, but still. That was inhumane. Riza told me probably because she knew I was like a daughter to Hughes and he was like a father to me. I walked outside to clear my mind. I found a bench in a desolate park, I sat there to recollect my thoughts, and for the third time this month I cried. Cried uncontrollably, gosh how I hated crying, it showed how much of a sissy you could be. Other people would say it shows _your sensible side,_ but this was too much. I couldn't bear not to cry, I had just lost my brother not three and a half weeks ago and now my 'father'. I had to let it out somehow… After a while I stopped my weeping and stood up to find an alley. With determination I took out my ingredients I had in my emergency zip lock bag. Placing the ingredients in the right place, I had started concentrating. I took a deep breath, clapped my hand and transmutated. And right before my eyes the exact copy of me was standing there, motionless. With relief I transmuted again, this time when I opened my eyes my clone was sitting up looking confused. She saw me collapse and ran to my side, to help me up.

-"I need you to stay with the Elric brothers and Winry. They're going to stay at Rush Valley for exactly three days, that's the time for your function. After three days I will either replenish your soul bond or I will be back to take my soul fragment back, understood?" I explained wearily, Meg (2) smiled and nodded. She took me to the train station, bought me a ticket that headed straight for Central and left for the hotel.

-"Call me very night to tell me how it went!" I yelled with my last strand of energy from the train window, after that I fell asleep trying to relax for the upcoming events.

* * *

Moment I arrived, I went straight to the Hughes's residence. Gracia greeted me with tears in her eyes, thanking me for being here for the family. Nodding I hugged her tightly for a long time. Soon afterwards I noticed Alicia was not around.

-"She's sleeping; I don't have the heart to tell her. I just-"Gracia's thoughts trailed off. –"The funeral is tomorrow, would you be willing to give speech?" She asked me after she had collected her thoughts properly. I shook my head and with a miserable expression responded.

-"It would be disrespectful, Gracia. I know I'm like practically family, but there are other people who have known him longer." My eyes stung but I held back the tears, just seeing the grief in Gracia's eyes made me feel horrible.

-"Don't worry, I understand. Let's get you a cup of tea and off to bed with you!" She tried to look happy. I smiled faintly and followed.

* * *

The next day everybody I knew was present, all the military and Hughes family was standing in lines to witness his burial. We were at the military burial grounds, where all the soldiers get buried. We watched four men pass with Hughes' coffin and let it down in a hole next to a tombstone. In respect, all the military men were wearing uniform, looked down and saluted Hughes' coffin; even the Führer. I too was wearing uniform, the unworldly jacket, skirt, decorations even the hat and gloves. Yes, all looked down except Gracia, Alicia and I. Alicia hadn't the slightest bit of knowledge of what was happening, but she did not complain when her mother told her to wear a black dress and hop into the car so she could go to an unknown place. The same four men that had carried Hughes' coffin over had started shovels to bury the coffin.

-"Mama, why are they burying Papa?" Alicia asked, she sounded scared. No answer. The men kept shoveling dirt into the hole that held Hughes' coffin.

-"Why are those men burying Papa? Why?" Alicia was now grabbing unto her mother's sleeve. Still no answer.

-"Alicia…" My throat clomped up and wouldn't let me speak.

-"I don't want them to. I don't want them to!" She was now shaking her mother's arm, tearing up. –"If they do that, then Papa can't do his work anymore! Mama, stop them!" She continued. Gracia embraced her child and whispered her name to soothe her troubling heart.

-"Papa said he still had a lot of work to do! I don't want them to!" This time Gracia couldn't hold it anymore and started weeping. I had to look away myself because my eyes were tearing up. I glanced at Armstrong and saw that he was crying too.

-"Don't let them bury him, Mama! Papa! Papa!"

* * *

Everybody had started leaving when Gracia decided to go talk to the undertaker. Alicia was escorted back to the car by Armstrong who had finally calmed down. I decided I would take one more glance to Hughes' tomb and say a little goodbye of my own. But as soon as I walked over, the wind blew away my black gloves towards a bush. I searched for them franticly since they were Gracia's. While I was looking I heard mustang's voice nearby.

-"Killed in the line of duty, and promoted two ranks… Brig. General Hughes, huh?" He was looking at Hughes' tombstone. I was hiding in the bushes so Mustang wouldn't be interrupted with his thoughts.

-"What am I going to do, now that the man who said he would stay beneath me and assist me; has gone above me, you idiot?" I saw that his left arm had started shaking, at that moment I saw Riza come from behind.

-"Colonel-

-"Once, I tried putting together a theory on how to preform human transmutation. Just now, I was franticly remembering it." I tried not to gasp when I heard this or make a sound otherwise Mustang would yell at me. –"We alchemists are nasty creatures. If the Elric Brothers were mixed up in this, why didn't he report it to me? Hughes didn't have to go charging into this alone…" I didn't get what Mustang was saying at all, it seemed like I was missing some pieces of information that they knew about.

-"Haven't you figured it out yet?" Riza inquired.

-"What?" Both Mustang and I were confused.

-"When it comes to those brothers, the colonel has been known to lose his level-headed judgment. And so Brig. Gen. Hughes took everything concerning the Elric brothers and Meg, upon himself, so that the Lt. Colonel could relax and set his sights above himself." Riza explained whole heartedly. Mustang in response brushed his hair backwards and put his hat back on.

-"It's going to rain today." Mustang commented as he looked up at the sky, to my surprise a tear running down his cheek. Riza smiled faintly and responded.

-"Yes, sir." Then both of them walked away. When I made sure they had left, I scurried to Hughes' tomb. I just stared at it for a while remembering one of the conversations the Elric brothers, Winry and I had on the train ride to Rush Valley.

-"Lt. Colonel Hughes is like a mother hen and a busybody… he bothers me." Edward had remarked.

-"He always used to come and joke around with us, huh?" Al agreed.

-"Every day, he said he was busy with work, but he always came by to check on us." Edward said with his mouth full of Gracia's famous apple pie.

-"And when he arrived home from work he would come and still have the energy to play with Alicia, have nice conversations with me and help Gracia with dinner." I chimed in.

-"I wonder why he looked after us as much as he did." Alphonse pondered.

-"Who knows." Edward starred out the window.

-"Make sure that when we get back to Central to thank him for his kindness." Winry nagged.

My eyes stung and my body wanted to start weeping again but I wouldn't let it. I fought back the tears and knelt down, leaving a letter of thanks I had written the night before. '_Winry was right; I should've thanked and somehow repaid him for his kindness.'_ I thought as I walked back to Gracia's car.

* * *

The next morning I put on casual clothes on and left for Roy's office. He had called me last night saying that he would take me to the train station first thing in the morning. But I had to go to his office before to pick up some papers I had overdue. '_Why can't he fill them himself? He makes Riza fill his so he had plenty of time for himself. Like taking naps, reading the newspaper, socializing-' _I was thinking of the lists of all the procrastinating things he does every day. When I arrived Lt. Ross had beat me and was handing an envelope to Mustang.

-"A bill?" Roy inquired still looking at the series of papers.

-"Includes hospital fees, food, doctors, etc. Edward Elric wants Eastern Headquarters to reimburse him" Lt. Ross explained, Riza had started flipping through the bills.

-"Junk food… 'Reading materials', as well as a large bill from a variety of toy stores." She did not look pleased; of course if I was them I wouldn't either. I mean a box full of junk food, another box full of comic books and in the far corner an additional box full of random toys… If I was her I wouldn't give back a single penny.

-"Where are they?" Roy demanded, I thought he knew I was right behind them but apparently he hadn't noticed my entry. Lt. Ross glanced over the Colonel's shoulder to receive my consent to whether tell them or not. I shook my head in disapproval.

-"They left in a trip to further their objective. I believe they will contact us soon, so for the time being-

-"I asked you where they were!" Mustang yelled at Maria Ross, which made the three girls in the room flinch. She wanted to tell them but I pleaded her not to from behind.

-"Colonel…Look at this." Riza diverted his attention to a map that was pasted to the wall. They were both inspecting it while I smiled at Maria and gave thanks for her help. But suddenly the doors burst open showing an angry woman with black hair put back with several braids, and a fat guy also black haired but had a beard.

-"Are the Elric brothers here?!" The lady demanded, not noticing she almost hit me with the door.

-"No, they aren't" Ross snapped back at them.

-"Where have they gone!" The lady spat, I was about to slap the lady so she could calm down.

-"Eh, um... well-

-"Hey." The fat man said, showing the map he had taken from Riza.

-"Oh! Nice going dear, let's go." Suddenly her tone had changed into a soothing one and gave her husband a thumbs up. In response he did too, and both walked out. All of us were just standing there dumb folded.

-"Sooo about taking me to the train station…" I broke the awkward silence with not the best subject to start on. Both Riza and the Colonel shot daggers at me for what I swear, seemed like the longest time before they responded. Roy sighed before replying.

-"Come along; because of this detour, I will need you to mail me the paper work as soon as you arrive at Dublith." He explained as we walked to the car, sat down and Mustang handed me a few documents. I started scribbling while Riza drove us; of course Roy kept scolding me because supposedly I kept writing the wrong stuff in the wrong place. But alas it all worked out during the ride, surprisingly we finished before we arrive to the train station so we had time to converse. Fun, fun, fun! (Sarcasm).

-"So how did you leave the Elric brothers without leaving them hints about Hughes' death?" Mustang inquired.

-"Well… technically I never left. For them I am still at Rush Valley doing, whatever nonsense they are doing." I clarified, but of course Roy's stupidity didn't catch on.-"Ahem! I made a clone, the clone reports back to me so it seems like I know what happened during my leave. The clone has my soul fragment, that's its life force. When I get back I will reconnect that soul fragment back to its original state and body which is me." I didn't pause for a minute, I purposely talked really fast so Roy would just give up on the subject.

-"You did human transmutation." Apparently both of them caught on to my one sided explanation. I shook my head.

-"No, because I didn't create a new being or bring back anyone. It's like what Ed did for Al; I just inserted a soul fragment to an object. It does no harm since it's an empty shell, only thing is… well it makes me more hungry, tired and moody." I kept trying to enlighten the situation to Riza and Mustang so they would see it was harmless, which it was, but now Roy was smiling mischievously.

-"So why not make another clone and have down here with us?' The Colonel questioned. I face palmed.

-"Didn't you just hear me? It makes me _moody, hungrier,_ and more _tired._" I made emphasis on the important stuff for his tiny brain to understand.

-"You seem fine to me." He was getting on my nerves. I punched his arm and looked him in the eye.

-"I hide things well. And if you ever need me for an e_mergency_ then that will be the time I will make a clone for you." Gosh it's hard to illuminate thick headed people.

-"Seems legit-

-"I'll ring you up if there ever appears the necessity." Riza finished for the Colonel.

-"Thanks for understanding Riza, it's just it's hard to live for two bodies. Of not I would be doing sooo much more!" We had arrived now and I was starting to buy my ticket. The both escorted me to the train and we all waited on a bench.

-"Thanks for letting me do my research." I muttered under my breath.

-"_Cough, Cough! _ Didn't hear you." Mustang mocked, but Riza gave him a glare that seemed to hurt as much as a slap to the head.

-"It's a great alchemic advance you are doing, it helps the whole world." She assured nevertheless the Colonel just scoffed. But before it was my turn to hit him, the train's horn blared. The three of us ran up to the train and their said their goodbyes. Just as I boarded the train I noticed I was missing my bag, swiftly I scurried down the hallway and down the little stairs of the train's passenger cart. I saw a hand with my bag so instinctively I hauled it towards me. Unexpectedly I felt someone's sturdy arms wrap around me hastily before I could notice. Then, for what seemed for a minute or two, those sturdy arms let me go as they put a note and a goody sack in my bag. I had caught Roy's scent as I sat down in my seat. And to my certainty, guess who I found grinning deviously at me? Well, you guessed it! Lt. Colonel Roy Mustang. I rolled my eyes and proceeded to inspect the goody bag first, surprisingly it had every single junk food I liked. It went from 'Golden-Whales' to 'w&ws'… Roy is such a stalker. But his little surprise did make me happy, while I was about to open the bag of 'Golden-Whales' a lady came up to my seat and told me to repack my stuff.

-"Your seat has been changed to a personal coach, please follow me." She stated in those annoying, fake 'kind' voices the train attendants have.

-"Excuse me?" I probably had a blank look in my face because she looked quite annoyed.

-"A train coach. It's like your own little room inside a train." She explained, well sorry for not knowing every single room that exists in a train. I nodded and picked up my stuff, I followed her through a long hallway where she finally stopped in the V.I.P section. Well it didn't say V.I.P. but you could tell from all the fancy people around. There was undoubtedly going to be some military sobs around.

-"Can I ask who made this seating change?" I asked as I set my stuff down. The attendant looked at her paper and shrugged.

-"It only says R.M on the signature… Sorry." She then left and closed the door behind her. I didn't know if either to be flattered or annoyed, because Roy probably has been to the V.I.P section before and must know military dogs roam around this part of the train. I glanced at the envelope that had also been shoved into my bag. I opened it and saw that there was two letters inside the envelope, so I read the one that obviously had the number one written on it. It stated _'Hope you like these little surprises, but the point of the letters isn't that. I want you to read the second letter when I have called you and told you to open it. Don't let your curiosity make you open it before .It is crucial that you be careful around military staff, I know you have always been skeptical when it comes to the military. So keep doing that and also keep an eye on the Elric brother's affairs. I believe that someone within the military is covering Hughes' death and possibly a lot more information we can think of right now. So please take my letter in mind. XoXo R.M.' _That last part made me want to crumble up the paper and throw it out the window, but the message he conveyed had alerted me. I wanted to ask for some newspapers so I could research for a bit on the military. Nonetheless I was exhausted and without second thought I went to sleep on the comfy couches they had in the room.

* * *

Meg (2) had called also last night; she told me that they were on their way to Dublith, she also voiced about their little adventures in Rush Valley which I really didn't find amusing at all. I mean having to chase a random girl for your military watch and then find to she was helping Winry, and that Winry had done this supposedly because Ed had been rude or something? Yeah… didn't care much for that. It was nothing important, no one got hurt, no one got kidnapped, they didn't meet someone new that they had brought along. Nothing important. Those were my thoughts as I searched the city of Dublith for the flipping, fudging, unknown hotel they were staying in. Yeah that's right; I censor my thoughts… sometimes. Meg (2) expressed to me that they had made a reservation for the 'Hotel Lodge' but so far no one knew about it. '_Complaining won't get you anywhere Meg' _I heard Russell often say, so I started to think 'positive'. Which means I proceeded to criticize people instead of the hotel. Suddenly I caught Al's scent, so I scurried down the streets like a rat… yeah pretty pathetic. But that way I could catch the scent better and run faster, after a few minutes I found myself in a series of street markets. I, of course wasn't paying much attention to my surroundings, so out of the nowhere I bounced off a flabby gut. I looked up and said sorry but stopped midsentence. The flabby stomach belonged to the Guy with black hair and beard that had busted in with the ticked off lady.

-"What?! Are you not going to finish? Close that jaw, there's nothing to be amused about!" The fuming lady raised her voice at me. I smiled faintly and started to back away slowly.

-"No it's nothing, I truly am sorry. Hope you have a nice day!" the moment I turned around, I hit a metal chest.

-"Are-are you ok?" Al examined frantically checking if I had an injury. When I looked up he sighed with a tone of relief, he seemed fine, but me? My head was spinning, so I didn't have much of a reaction. Alphonse helped me up and brushed off the dirt.

-"I thought you were going to just take a walk around the hotel." It had only been three days since I had seen him but it felt like forever. Seeing his innocent, pure eyes felt like it was the first time I was seeing them.

-"Uh, yeah. Well I guess I wandered off to the market. Hehe." I stammered a bit because I was still staring at those eyes that were full of expression. '_Waay better than Roy's dark, piercing eyes.' _ I thought but I almost slapped myself for thinking such nonsense. Why did I compare him to Mustang, that no good Colonel?

-"You hear that voice Zig? That sounds like Alphonse Elric." The irritated lady commented rather loudly. Both Al and I looked at each other with 'uh oh' expressions, and our instinct was to run towards the hotel.

-"Al why are we running?" I asked as we approximated the hotel, finally starting to think straight.

-"We got to warn brother. We got to warn brother." That's all he said during the way back to the Guesthouse. When we got there Winry and Ed were having a little romantic moment. It wasn't anything serious, they were just looking at each other in the eyes deeply and as I heard once, you could smell love in the air.

-"Well looky here! I leave –

-"Brother we have a problem!" Just as Al had said that and interrupted me, the door burst open. Fat man appeared looking quite livid and enraged lady right behind him. I took a quick glance at Edward's expression and saw his face had turned grim. This couldn't mean good news.

* * *

**I took soo long writing this chapter because I was doing some researching of my own XD I was trying to find ways on how to make my writting better. So please tell me if it's better and if it didn't change the characters personality. Thanks for reading!**


	10. Chapter 10

"Th-that means…"Edward realized something important as his face turned pale. Suddenly he ran to the window, with a panicking motion, he tried to unlatch the lock. But as soon as he undid the lock, a leg kicked him in the face and sent him flying right back in. I looked back at the window to see Miss. Ferocity climbing through yelling at Ed about how she knew his every movement and what he would do next… creepy.

-"T-Teacher what are you doing here?" Ed was bewildered, as was Winry, which like me; didn't know who this lady was. She starred at the lady then back at Edward and paused.

-"You mean she's your teacher?" Her shock was easily seen.

-"Yeah, she's our old alchemy teacher." Miss. Aggressiveness winced at the word _old_; she glared at Ed real quick and looked around.

-"Where's Al?!" She yelled with spit flying out of her mouth. Yeah, real attractive.

The moment Alphonse heard his name being called out; he straightened and stood up as if he was in the military. She looked at him and her expression softened, but it wasn't as weird as her apologizing to him for following him… us, I correct. The lady kept ignoring me, which in a way was fine but she could've apologized to me too.

-"Do you know where Alphonse is?" Miss. Ferocity asked the metal armor, '_no wonder she was being so polite'_ I thought as I snickered quietly.

-"Uh, well, you see… I'm Alphonse." Alphonse was now grabbing his head in a nervous manner.

-"Is that so? My, my…. –" The lady paused for a moment and in that split second you could see Al's armor sweating as he slowly backed away. Abruptly teacher lady grabbed Al's metal arm and knocked him to the ground, right by my feet. –"Why were you hiding yourself in that costume?!" She yelled, then stepped back for a moment and put her hands to her hips.

-"I hear stories from you quite often, my moronic students. How you lowered to be military dogs!" She began rambling on and on how much she was disappointed in them. I glanced at Edward who was cowardly hiding behind Winry, his teeth chattering with fear. How bad could this lady be? I mean I can kick Ed too and send him flying. I stood there hearing her pestering, Edward's teeth chattering and Al's creaking armor. My ears had, had enough of this insufferable noise. I raised my hand while I looked at the ground so teacher lady wouldn't see my annoyed face, with my other hand on my hip. After a few moments she noticed my hand.

-"…Yes?" Miss. Teacher still seemed ticked off. I sighed before responding.

-"Lady why are you here?" I asked bluntly.

-"Why does that matter to you?" She sounded rather bitter.

-"Because your waisting my time." I fixed my eyes on teacher to show how I was not scared of her, I heard Ed exhale deeply like I had just signed my death sentence. Teacher stared at me for moment before responding.

-"You seem familiar… "

-"That doesn't respond my question. And as you said I don't matter, so please tell me what you plan to do with the Elric brothers?" I lifted my right eyebrow when she clutched her fists in response, quickly her husband grabbed her hand to calm her down.

-"We are taking them to Dublith–" She glared at the Elric brothers –"Whether they want to or not." And in a blink of an eye the Elric brothers had been tied up in separate ropes having the fat guy carry each one on his shoulders. The boys complained and yelled but miss teacher muffled their mouths and walked out the door. I glanced over at Winry and we both followed without a fuss.

* * *

-"Really guys, you had to get kidnapped?" I complained as we rode the train to Dublith, both brothers were sitting quietly in their seats, still tied up, mumbling to themselves.

-"Well you guys could've helped!" Edward shot daggers at me with his eyes.

-"Eh. I don't like to mess with the student-teacher relationship. Plus she's your teacher, she might know something about the philosopher stone." The three of them looked at me like I was a genius. I sighed and saw a train attendant lady pass by, so I called out for her. When she came I asked if they had payphones in the train, she signaled me to the last cart of the train. I took a glimpse at the couple who had kidnapped the Elric brothers before walking to the back. Once I got to the phones I used the last unoccupied payphone, and called Riza's number.

-"Lt. Riza Hawkeye, How may I be of service?" A voice was heard through the phone.

-"Hey Riza! It's Meg; I'm just calling to check in like Roy told me to. We're almost at Dublith."

-"Good thing you called, our office has been moved to Central. My number is going to be the same but next time you call I'm going to have to give you the new office number and the room we are in." Riza explained.

-"Sounds good! Is the whole crew coming?" I asked cheerfully.

-"Of course it is Meg, Roy made sure of that." Riza sounded a bit happy, in her own way. Suddenly I heard someone's footsteps in the background.

-"Who you talking to Lt. Hawkeye?" A male voice asked, soon I could hear Riza struggling to not have the phone taken away from her hand. Once the noises had stopped I waited to see who had won over the phone.

-"Why hello there Meg! Long time no talk, I bet you miss my melodic voice." Roy flirted.

-"Yeah long time, haven't talked to you since yesterday. Hey Roy, I wanted to talk to Riza and well, uh, she is currently unavailable- sooo I'm… ah, hanging up." I waited a second to hear Mustang's complaints and hung up the phone. When I sat back down in my seat, teacher lady was now ranting on how Edward would not be a good husband. I took a glance at Winry and Ed seeing them both blushing like there was no tomorrow. I giggled and just sat there enjoying the show…. Until teacher had to ruin it with '_Alphonse you wouldn't be a great husband either. Better than Edward... but not the best.'_ I tried hard not to glare at her since it was getting out of hand in my mind, but it seemed like Al was fine with it. Like he was used to the torture, I guess teasing is a form of love in their student-teacher relationship.

* * *

The next few days went like so, when we got to teacher's house we all… they all, chitchatted about life. Then by the end of the evening that Teacher lady whose name now I know is Izumi Curtis, figured out that her students had performed human alchemy. She beat the crap out of them. But few seconds later she hugged them. So it was all ok, until, one morning I woke up and the Elric brothers went missing. They apparently were sent to the island they had trained on when they were little.

Well they lasted a day over there, and when they came back they had this strange kid with long black hair, barely any cloths, blue eyes and a weird, innocent, but creepy look on his face. Also he had a bad case of a farmers tan; legitly he had one leg whiter than the other and one arm also whiter than the other. Izumi instantly pampered the boy, which we all thought was weird but no one complained but Edward Elric. And well since Ed can't leave matters alone and always pulls Al into them, they decided to go eavesdrop on the kid that night. The result was the bed, in some way, fused with the boy. Seconds later Izumi came in yelling and overprotecting the boy from the 'menacing' Elric brothers. Of course it was the kid's fault for trying to become a chimera using badly taught alchemy. I mean I saw how the boy changed himself back, and that alchemy sucked.

The next morning before breakfast the kid was taking a shower, just then I heard him yell that he needed a towel. I transmuted one and handed it over; he didn't know a thing about drying up so I helped him. That's when I noticed the whiter limbs had scars on the edges and after the scars the skin would turn back to its normal, non-pale color. I tried looking closely at his right foot thinking I had seen an ouroboros tattoo. But he squirmed too much. Also the boy sort of looked like Izumi and her husband, Sig, mixed together. That moment I realized that little boy was their deceased son, which this made him a homunculi. Izumi actually succeeded to bring back her son! I knew this because I snooped into Izumi's things and found her diary a few days ago.

I would've kept the secret to myself if the kid wasn't such a creep. When I saw him play in the yard he thought it was funny to torture any animal he saw, and when I told him to stop he went crying to his "mom". Izumi did nothing, but later on I got the punishment of receiving a crappy lunch in return. I don't know why, but I became the child's babysitter. And today the others discussed on something important that evening.

-"Hahaha! The ant now is glued to the sidewalk!" The kid cried.

-"Shh! I can't eavesdrop properly with you screaming." I scowled at the boy, but he kept on torturing the ants and making chimeras out of them. Suddenly I heard the door open and Sig came out, he signaled me to go inside.

* * *

-"You don't remember Al? What you saw?" Edward asked. Alphonse looked confused so Ed explained what he had seen while he performed the human transmutation. Something about a gate and truth flowing into him.

-"Truth?" Izumi asked confused, Ed nodded. –"It was more like magic tricks, wasn't it." There was a pause after the comment and I decided to butt in.

-"It's really neither; it's just information we haven't yet discovered ourselves. And if you actually think about it, all that information wasn't really all that alchemy related." I suggested; teacher stared at me for a moment not understanding. Then Ed explained that I too, could transmutate without a circle. Izumi stood up and walked to the door.

-"I need to go check something. In the meantime I want you away from that boy, understood?" She slammed the door, bewildered the brothers left for their room. I instead followed Izumi and confronted her.

-"That's your son isn't it? The homunculi, I mean." The moment I said _homunculi_ she shuddered in pain.

-"And you are to stay out of this house until I come back!" And with that both of us came to our wits end. She pushed me out of the house and warned me that if I decided to go in, Sig would throw me back out. I snickered while I thought of a plan to tell the Elric brothers the truth. Teacher grimaced at me for a moment and then disappeared in the darkness of the night. As soon as she left I made a little figurine out of water and dirt, which became clay afterwards. I touched its chest and he started glowing, life flowed into the tiny figure, I had made a little replica of Russell.

-"Go and tell Edward and Alphonse the truth, mini Russell." I ordered, the cute figurine nodded and started climbing the brick wall of the right side of the house. Slouching on a nearby tree, I sighed out loud. Giving a doll a small amount of my soul didn't make me as tired as making a whole clone, but it still wearied me out. Without knowing it I passed out for a while, but later on was awakened by the sound of shattering glass. Startled from the noise, I jumped up and observed the little homunculi boy run away. Instinctively I ran after him, and soon afterwards Ed was by my side chasing the little runt. We both ignored our names being called and yelled, trying to concentrate on the pursuit. I then noticed the sun was rising.

-"So how did little Russell convey the news?" I asked.

-"He had to repeat himself since we didn't believe him. Both Al and I went to see the proof ourselves, that's when everything got out of hand." Edward sounded out of breath as he got me up to speed on things.

As we ran, both of us tried to soothe the kid's fears, but nothing worked. As we kept running I caught a whiff of a lizard smelling creature that always kept the same distance from us, no matter how much we ran. The lizard-man-thing was stalking us; nonetheless it didn't feel like it would be a threat so I paid attention to the matters at hand. Suddenly the runt paused at a wall and went through it.

-"He merged with it!" Ed said in complete amazement. He clapped his hands and tried to make a door out of the wall, but nothing happened. I was about to give it a try when we heard someone behind us start to describe Ed, and his obsession with the philosopher stone. Edward turned around and confronted the man in rags that had been talking. They continued discussing until Ed decided to kick his face, which made him stagger backwards and his cloak fall off. Unexpectedly the man-lizard-hybrid looked literally like a salamander with a human face, he wore grey rags and a lizard tail was visibly seen in the sunlight.

-"I'm just proposing to take you somewhere safe! You and your freak of a brother." The chimera offered, suddenly Al out of nowhere picked him up, asking to repeat the last bit about Ed's brother. Instead of being afraid, the chimera lizard knocked Al's head off.

-"Tucker was right! You're hollow inside." He giggled in delight. Both brothers exclaimed at the name Tucker, that's when salamander saw his moment to escape and yelled back at us.

-"Don't get so offended at what people say to you!" In response to the comment Edward made a wall out of alchemy to stop him from scurrying away. Salamander chuckled and looked back.

-"Amazing! That's quite amazing! But-"He started climbing up the wall like a normal lizard would. –"I'm amazing too." He grinned like a little kid.

-"Wait! Who sent you?!" I yelled but it was too late, he had jumped off the ledge. I sighed in disappointment, and glance at Ed who had his jaw open.

-"W-What was that thing?" He mumbled under his breath, as he said that I heard two men running towards us. I shuddered having an idea I wouldn't like one of them.

-"A chimera? Don't tell me he escaped from the 5th laboratory." I heard a man say in a monotone manner. We all turned around to find Armstrong and a pale man with dark hair that was brushed back, blue cold eyes, barely any eyebrows and shoulder length to Major Armstrong standing there.

-"Oh major! It's been a while" Al exclaimed in glee. The major nodded in response and looked at the man next to him.

-"Mhmm, this is Lt. Col. Archer. He is in charge of the court-martial office." Armstrong explained.

-"Hey Ed that means he is in the same office as Hughes! How's the colonel holding up?" Al asked quite excitedly. Both Armstrong and I winced at the question; pain started flowing into my thoughts. I waited for Archer to bear the news but instead he brushed it aside.

-"I would like to ask you about the chimeras, as well as many other things." Archer asked with a smile on his face to look polite. Edward turned around and said he didn't have time for that, he then made a hole through the wall and told us to follow him. The brothers started running but I hesitated and observed the Lt. Colonel. Glaring at him I sprinted to catch up with Ed and Alphonse.

-"This is turning to be quite interesting… A perfect chimera, huh? I want him." I heard Col. Archer devise. I would have to keep an eye on him; he seemed to have too many secrets.

* * *

When we passed a metal house I caught the scent of the homunculi runt and told the Elric brothers to follow me up the roof. When we got there, the idiot had started rolling down the roof and would've almost fallen if Ed hadn't caught him just in time.

All the boy could say was "_huh?'_ in his defense.

-"_Huh_ doesn't even begin to cover it." Edward mocked. After that, we all sat on the edge of the roof, just collecting our thoughts and enjoying the breeze. The little homunculi decided to ask why his arms were different from ours after a while of inspecting them himself.

-"Because this arm and leg aren't really existent." Ed explained as he pointed to his artificial limbs.

-"Where are they, Ed?" he asked innocently, somehow when he did that, my heart would soften for him.

-"I lost them…" Ed looked at Alphonse and both of them separated from the group to discuss about the child's limbs. I scooted over and played patty cake with him.

-"Sorry if I was mean." I mumbled, apologizing for being a tyrant to the boy. He wiggled his nose and smiled at me sweetly saying that he didn't care, because I was fun, also I was kind of like sister. "_Ouch! Even though I was such a witch he is really fond of me. Hah! I guess I have that effect on kids'_ I thought feeling somewhat worse but cocky at the same time. I caught the scent of Lt. Col. Archer nearby and scooted even closer to the boy as I tried to look for his hiding place.

-"Say, have I done something wrong?"The homunculi boy asked inoffensively, looking back at the Elric brothers. They both paused for a moment not knowing what to say.

-"Brother!" Al exclaimed abruptly as he ducked. The tower beside the roof shattered and its concrete pieces fell on Ed and Al. I swiftly hugged the boy in case we fell, as more pieces exploded around us; I closed my eyes tightly waiting for all of this to pass.

-"Major what you are doing?!" Edward shouted over the explosion noises. '_Armstrong? Is he the one attacking us?'_ I assumed, trying not to let go of the child. Then an explosion vibrated too close to us and we stumbled over the edge, I grabbed on to one of the metal tiles and used my alchemy to surround my hand with the metal tile. But the homunculi boy wasn't that lucky, he tried to grab onto me but the explosion was too powerful for him to act fast.

-"Brother no!" I heard Al yell in the heat of the moment. I looked down hoping not to see the child dead, to my relief Major Armstrong had caught him; however that relief didn't last very long as I soon realized that he had binded him with his alchemist watch. Enraged I tried to jump down but remembered my hand was part tile at the moment. Fortunately Ed had already made some stairs out of concrete from the wall of the house and was jumping down.

-"Major that boy has no memory! We already filed a report!" Edward was explaining as he tried to get to ground-level.

-"He's an important witness to the destructive activity that occurred in Central. We'll question him at the Southern Command center." Archer intervened, but he wasn't making any sense. That boy hadn't appeared until Ed and Al went to the island.

-"What are you talking about?!" Edward asked as he raised his voice. _'Tell him Ed!'_ I thought as I watched the whole scene from above.

-"You've seen this crest before too, haven't you?" Archer questioned as he glanced at the child's foot and raised it to show us too. The Elric brothers gasped at the sight of the crest that rested on the homunculi's right side of his foot.

-"The boy is associated with the homunculi?" Al couldn't grip the thought. My nose started twitching as the scent of salamander-man approached us. I decided not to rat him out because they would take the poor chimera into hostage too.

-"He's connected to the people who destroyed the fifth laboratory." Archer responded; I snickered knowing that had been actually our fault. Lt. Col. Archer started walking away after stating his response with the kid on his shoulders.

-"Hey! Hey! Hey-Hey! WAIT!" I shouted on the top of my lungs, if he was kept in custody of the military who knew what could happen to the boy. I quickly searched my pockets to find my golden watch. All eyes were on me, some glared others just beheld. I cleared my throat and tried to look more dignified, well as dignified as a person that was dangling from a house with a half tile-half hand could be.

-"That boy is in my custody, you cannot take him away unless you have permission from someone in a higher rank… for example the führer himself." I stated showing my golden watch with pride, I saw Archer's eyes widened and slight rage overcame. But in a split second he scoffed.

-"I do believe watches are now silver, not gold." He continued walking.

-"Don't play dumb with me! You know I'm the only alchemist with this watch, and that's because I'm a special division alchemist!" I yelled in return, Archer's back tensed up but he kept walking as if he didn't know what I was talking about.

-"Don't worry your stories will be taken into account." The Major tried to comfort me.

-"ARGH!" I was struggling to get loose from the tile. –"Wait! Wasn't this investigation banned by the Führer?!" But Armstrong did the same thing as Archer, walked away.

-"That boy might have my arm and legs, if you look closely those aren't his…. That scar on his right arm- well, I got that scar from a fox bite." Edward blurted out.

-"All we want is to investigate. We've been searching for years for this!" Al chimed in. The major looked back and paused.

-"Give it up." He said bluntly. –"What if they are yours? Are you just going to pluck them off? You're better off not finding out if they're actually yours." Armstrong recommended. The three of us were momentarily crushed, not knowing what to do.

I sighed and whistled at Ed.

-"Let's just go back to Izumi's place." They both nodded and started walking forgetting that I was still stuck. It was fine with me because I could have some moments alone with salamander man.

-"Hey! What are you going to tell your boss, hmm?" I exclaimed as I tilted my head backwards. He paused and scurried over.

-"How'd you know I was here?" He asked bewildered.

-"I'm half dog, ya know, a chimera?" I joked, but his eyes widened and filled with only delight.

-"Y-y-you're telling the truth?"

-"Pfft, no. I used to be blind so I just developed further my hearing and scent abilities. But now that I think about it… You could say I turned part dog." I chuckled; he didn't think it was that funny. I apologized since I was insulting a part of his race of chimeras. He paused for a moment and then helped me up.

-"Greed will be pleased with this information, do you want to come with me? You're that girl that follows the Elric brothers' right? Greed said something about you and how you'd be a good addition to the group since your quite powerful… He said Envy, Lust, and Gluttony think you're important." Salamander man started talking to himself. I took that time to undo my binding to the metal, roof tile.

-"If my memory is right-"He continued –"Your name is Megan, is it not?" The chimera stared at me intently waiting for an answer.

-"Just call me Meg, ok?"

-"You can call me Bido!" Bido exclaimed with enchantment, I guess he thought we were now close friends. But I couldn't resist smiling back at Bido; he seemed to be more loyal than a dog.

-"Well it's been a pleasure chitchatting with you, but I must get back to my own business." I said as I jumped down, nonetheless paused for a minute. –"Since we're chums and all, why not the next time we meet you return me a favor?" He looked surprised for an instant and then realized that I had saved his lizard meat from those military dogs. Bido beamed and scurried away from my sight.

* * *

When I got back to Izumi's house, I fully understood what _out of hand _meant. The room where everybody had gathered in had two huge holes, one in the ceiling and another next to the bed on the far right side, of what used to be, the homunculi's room. The moment I got back, there was already tension in the room; so much that I was practically invisible. Also the instant I arrived, Al had started to describe our past encounters with other homunculi.

-"A mouth that can eat through metal, fingernails that can penetrate anything, the ability to transform their body at will. That boy is a monster… just like the rest of them." Izumi looked at Al and went over to give him a slight push. She asked him if he knew how homunculi were born, however before she could keep talking she coughed up blood. Sig without hesitation carried her rapidly to the car and drive to the hospital.

* * *

-"You mean she's always had this sickness?" Winry asked.

-"She's so strong we always forget." Alphonse said regrettably, both Edward and I were just standing in a corner of the waiting room collecting our thoughts.

-"Why not take her to a hospital in Central?" Winry asked again.

-"Because it would be of no use." A doctor cut in.

-"Not to be rude or anything, but a hospital in Central would be more helpful than a rural one." She commented; the doctor just looked at the ground in shame. Winry gasped silently and soon realized. –"The sickness is incurable."

We followed the doctor into an analytical room for him to show us what was wrong with Izumi's body. He pulled out a mannequin that showed the internal organs of a human body and proceeded to point at the organs below the stomach.

-"Somehow Mrs. Curtis is missing all these internal organs, as if they just simply disappeared. And now the remaining have bonded together extensively so she can still keep on living." He explained.

-"As if they just disappeared…" Ed mumbled. Suddenly a nurse came bursting in yelling at the doctor that Mrs. Izumi Curtis has escaped. _'Great if chasing homunculi isn't enough, now we gotta chase terminally ill ladies.'_ I thought as we all ran out the hospital.

-"South Headquarters! She went to go get her the child!" I yelled as the four of us sprinted through the streets. When we arrived Ed and Al went in, while Winry and I stayed outside to question Sig. But he didn't feel like talking, not that he was the talkative type of person, so I decided to go inside too. Until I heard Winry getting frustrated about her not knowing anything and how no one wanted to tell her anything. Gosh she can be naïve sometimes, so I turned around and when I did, Sig told his story.

-"She told me she was sorry. I was the one who kept her from giving birth, in order to save her own life. And yet, Izumi told me she was sorry she wasn't able to give birth, over and over again." My head started to reason all of this more and more. I decided to push myself with the rock underneath me to Izumi's position. I had to look for a good spot to land on, since teacher had made South Headquarters a building with random bumps, thus I went slowly.

-"Your son? ... Is that so?" Winry asked as another bump appeared on the building.

-"But I didn't know- didn't know her sorrow. Or how hard she was taking it; I never thought she would perform human alchemy on her own." Sig choked on a tear.

-"She tried to bring the baby back to life?" Winry was puzzled.

-"She did everything by herself. I don't know what she saw or did there, but when she came back she was missing her bottom organs and she couldn't have any more babies. Again she said sorry." Finally I had found a safe spot to 'park', nonetheless before entering I looked back and gave my condolences to Sig with the wave of my hand. As soon as I stepped inside the building an explosion ringed throughout the halls and pieces of ceiling crumbled down. I ran through some hallways until I found Ed confronting teacher.

-"Teacher, I am still a dog of the military. So please put that boy down." Edward advised, however I did not agree on his opinion. So I stepped next to Izumi and put my hand on her shoulder showing that I was on her side. Then the steps of three men were heard close by, we all looked to the right and saw Lt. Col. Archer, Major Armstrong… and the Führer? No that wasn't right. My eyes told me it was him but the scent he was emitting told me otherwise.

-"Why would the Führer be here?" Edward muttered under his breath, my thoughts exactly. Waisting no time I showed teacher an alternative route, and without a thought both of us ran back the hallway she had come from. Edward ran after us; however that was cut short by another explosion. From the ruble emerged Bido and Uncle Kimblee; uncle was wearing a black shirt under a red suit with his hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. _"Oh gosh no! Flipping son of a tortoise! He just had to show up.'_ I thought with panic rising through my veins.

-"Lizard mongrel!" Edward yelled at the sight of Bido, I wonder what insult he would throw at Kimblee…

-"So sorry to intrude, hehehe. We just want the kid." Bido said as the military caught up to us.

-"Teacher and Meg, the military, not to mention these scoundrels. Dang! Seems like a four way fight." Edward examined but the 'Führer' just chuckled.

-"Well I guess I make five." He said maliciously, it seemed like no one else heard him but it now made a little bit more sense to me. That Führer wasn't the real Führer and I had a good idea who it could be.

-"Solf J. Kimblee?! Y-You're supposed to be dead." Armstrong exclaimed in horror, I wouldn't blame him.

-"Kimblee?" Archer raised his right eyebrow up.-"The Crimson Alchemist?" He continued with his monotone voice. I glanced at uncle seeing him enjoy the attention; he caught me looking and smirked even more.

-"A state alchemist?" Edward was also in shock, this was getting real tense, real fast.

-"You were supposed to be executed a long time ago, charged for disobeying the military's direct orders at Ishbal." Archer was now outraged, in his own monotone voice way. Kimblee put his hands in his pockets and looked down pleased.

-"Well that's one way to put it; another might be that I made woman and children go _boom_!" Uncle mocked. –"And when my superior officers tried to stop me –

-"BOOM!" Bido yelled in response, Kimblee smirked and shrugged his shoulders. I got goosebumps thinking of all those innocent lives being destroyed just because the bloodlust, of my own uncle.

-"I was really looking forward to my execution but for some strange reason the powers in me decided to keep me alive." He looked proud absorbing all the attention he was getting.

-"But why?" Armstrong inquired with a bit of rage in his eyes.

-"I'm not sure why… Hmm why don't you try asking that gentlemen, ...the one behind you." Uncle pointed at the Führer, giving me more suspicions. And for a split second I thought I heard the Führer's voice change saying _'How should I know?'_

-"Are you going to allow this chaos to go on?" The Fuhrer asked indignantly, back in his normal tone.

-"Don't you stand there! Arrest every one of them." Lt. Col. Archer ordered; both teacher and I tensed up; thinking of a way to get out of this mess. Edward was about to approach teacher but she kicked him in the stomach.

-"There's no point in stopping me!" She cried while she ran away with the boy, of course I followed not looking back at uncle or Bido. But Al had to ruin our escape.

-"Please wait Teacher." He said.

-"Way to go Al!" Edward was proud of him; he dashed to where the four of us were. Shortly the Führer appeared out of nowhere and grasped the child from Izumi. Everybody in the room gasped.

-"Amazing…" That was Bido's favorite saying when he saw something impressive.

-"He's a homunculus alright, now if you excuse me…" King Bradley quickly skimmed his foot and ran off with the child.-"He's coming with me."

-"Not a chance!" Izumi yelled as she used her alchemy to produce a huge hand that aimed a punch at the Führer.

-"The alchemy's amazing too!" Bido once again exclaimed. However Armstrong blocked the punch and with his alchemy made it into small flying spikes. Quickly I touched the wall and with the metal wires inside, I made each one of the concrete spikes stay in place.

-"Anyone who tries to hurt the Führer will be defeated in the most graceful and beautiful way!" Armstrong exclaimed showing off his muscles. Teacher just scoffed and continued battling the Major, but as the battle continued, the building kept crumbling down.

-"Brother, if we don't stop this fast the whole building will collapse!" Alphonse shouted in the mist of the fight.

-"If we don't stop them, the whole city will collapse." Edward stated, so he started carefully walking towards teacher. Nonetheless Bido had to interfere with his tail knocking Ed out of the way. Bido chuckled as he wouldn't let go of Edward's leg while he struggled to get out, I ran over to help as well as Al but Alphonse paused for a moment.

-"My, my you have an interesting body." Kimblee smirked widely at Alphonse. I pushed Al out of the way before Kimblee could hurt him and neutralized the particles in the air near him. Course Uncle pouted at me for removing his prey.

-"You made an explosion out of thin air!" Al bellowed in shock. Edward proceeded to explain how Kimblee could compress particles and make explosions out of people. I sensed Lt. Col. Archer was eavesdropping.

-"Why are you here?" Edward asked still in Bido's grip.

-"For the boy of course, our boss has an interest in him." Bido explained with a chuckle.

-"He wants to talk to you boys too, seems there some business to discuss." Kimblee chimed in; he then looked at me and smirked. –"Don't worry we won't harm them." He started ruffling my hair.

-"Yeah right! Like you weren't about to now!" I shooed his hand away angrily.

-"Oh, is that so?" Edward mocked as he started hurting Bido's tail. Bido wailed in pain so he let go of Edward, the instant he did, Alphonse clutched his tail and sent him flying next to Kimblee. I had to duck which made Bido hit the concrete wall. In response Uncle just clapped his hands and grabbed Bido's tail.

-"You're not going to make me into one of your bombs, are you?!" He cried in total horror.

-"Yeah, sure." Kimblee said casually, I frowned and kicked Uncle's shin. Also Edward charged where the three of us were with his metal arm made into a dagger. Luckily Kimblee let go of Bido's tail and threw him unto Ed's face, nonetheless Ed and Bido started wrestling like dogs while the rest us just observed. I glanced at Uncle and slapped the back of his right arm.

-"Next time you feel like exploding someone ask if I care." I said sternly, he looked at me with amusement.

-"You didn't say that when we were at the fifth lab." He mocked; I shushed him and frowned again.

-"Yeah well, ask ok? These two?" I pointed at the Elric brothers –"Yeah news flash, they're my companions and new family. So better not make bombs out of them." I ordered as I grabbed Uncle's shirt so we could be eye level. He chuckled some more and looked me straight in the eye.

-"That's why you're my favorite niece, in matter of fact you're the only family member that I like! The only one with guts to confront me, heh. If you need anything, you're favorite uncle is here for you." Uncle Kimblee winked right before another explosion occurred. I yelled at Bido and Uncle but couldn't see them, I told the Elric brothers to find Teacher while I went to look for the 'Führer'. But in reality I still wanted to ask uncle some questions. I followed the cloud of ruble until I saw a patch of light.

-"We need Greed to handle this! We need Greed! We can't handle this ourselves- GREEEED!" Bido shouted as he ran out the building leaving uncle behind.

-"The hell with it, it'd be easier if I blew up the entire building… I'm sure Meg would make out alive." Kimblee looked annoyed. From a distance the click of a semi-automatic, hand gun was heard.

-"Nice to meet you, I'm Lt. Col. Frank Archer. It's a pleasure to meet the famous Crimson Lotus Alchemist." Archer introduced.

-"Yeah you too…" Uncle stated.

-"By who's authority where you kept alive?" Archer asked.

-"Don't know."

-"Do you plan to come back into the service of the military?" Kimble chuckled at Archer's question.-"I could make it happen." The crimson alchemist stopped chuckling and looked at Frank Archer; I sensed the Lt. Col. was smirking. _'This doesn't seem like a good time to intervene, he'll probably just make Archer go- Boom! …Which I wouldn't mind.'_ I thought as I hurried back to the Elric brothers.

* * *

-"OOOW! The pain! As I suspected, the teacher of the great Elric boys was too strong!" Armstrong wailed while clutching the left side of his abdomen. I had walked in right in the moment Edward and Al had found the Major.

-"Heh. Thought this much would happen, thanks Major." Edward said with a sincere tone in his voice. I noticed the injury was, in reality, on his right side.

-"Haha, uum Major? Your hand should be on your right side." I told him giggling; he looked at me with a smile and told us to go look for teacher. As we searched the whole building Ed whined about the scratch Bido had given him. It did look deep and it was right on his left cheek… wonder if that would be his new battle scar. After a while we all got restless of looking and decided to go back to Izumi's place to see if she had gone back there. But before leaving I had a hunch that I needed to still explore the building.

-"Ed… I, um I think I dropped my alchemist's watch, go on ahead I'll catch up with you guys once I found it." I lied, Edward looked at me, knowing I was lying but nodded and left with Al. I looked vigorously throughout the hallways until I found a semi-opened door leading to a boilers room, I peeped and saw a couple of philosopher stones scattered on the floor. I quickly ran inside and closed the door behind me, I inspected strongly for the explanation of the stones being cracked and what seemed, half eaten. I almost took some of them with me to show the brothers but decided to destroy them all but one. Just in case I ran into the 'Führer' and confront him. I walked out and headed to the entrance trying not to catch any attention to myself, but that never works.

-"Stop! Miss Kimblee, Lt. Col. Archer is looking for you!" A military dog yelled at me. _'Time to run!' _I thought but slipped with some rubble that had been lying underneath my feet. I moaned out loud, while I was helped to my feet and escorted to Archer's office. When Lt. Col. Archer saw me walk in he sneered and ordered the military dog to leave us alone. _'Keep it cool, keep it cool.'_ I kept thinking to stay calm.

-"Today's performance was quite unacceptable; you and your subordinates might get punished by the Führer severally for what happened." Archer started –"Both you and the Elric boy might even lose their State alchemy certification." He smiled at me cunningly.

-"Screw you!" I then covered my mouth before any more harm could be done, yeah great, calm start. Archer chuckled when I apologized for my language.

-"No, no it's quite alright. I've heard many stories of your sharp tongue and cunning ways." He rose from his desk and walked around it while his right hand slid across the desk.

-"Why am I here?" I asked bluntly.

-"Because I want to make a deal, I want you to-

_RING, RING, RING._ The phone had interrupted Archer's speech; he looked dumb folded as if the ringing had ruined his momentum. I glanced at the phone, which was to my right, and casually walked over to the phone.

-"Hello?" I said.

-"Lt. Col. Frank Archer, I… Meg?" A deep voice had started talking. I paused and let out a big sigh.

-"Yes, Mustang?"

-"Did I get the number wrong, cause this is Archer's office number… LT. HAWKEYE! HEY, I THINK-" His voice trailed off as he yelled at Riza asking if the number was right. I waited until he came back.

-"What are you doing in Archer's office?" Roy inquired.

-"Hmm? Oh nothing… well just on a date." I teased. –"Just kidding! I am being pestered for Ed's and my actions for today, but it seems like the nice Col. was going to let drop." I glanced at Archer while shooting daggers with my eyes. He looked annoyed and nodded.

-"Well tell me more about that later, good thing I got hold of right you now. In a day we will reach Dublith to pick up some more soldiers. We have an assignment at Kishua, and you're coming too." Mustang ordered, I was about to protest but complied to the orders since I didn't need more trouble.

-"I'll tell Archer too, if that's what you called for."

-"Yeah thanks… You sure you guys aren't on a date?"

-"Are you for real?! No! Who do you think I am anyways?! Good bye Roy!" I slammed the phone back and glared back at Archer.

-"Roy's coming tomorrow for some troops, and now if you excuse me I have some packing to do." Archer didn't dare to say anything after seeing me slam the telephone. So I stormed out and headed towards Izumi's house.

* * *

-"Where did she go, Sig?" The brothers demanded, but Sig wouldn't respond. The instant I walked in the air in the house was already tense. It seemed that Izumi didn't appear here either.

-"She must've gone to a place only she knows and feels safe." Winry stated as she walked in next to me. I thought for a moment before answering, where could she have gone…

-"That island you guys trained in." I responded.

* * *

**Guys! i would like to take the time to apologize! i took this chapter real slow and didnt realize i had taken almost three months... I'm really sorry! but,um, please review! i want to see if i improved or not :)**


End file.
